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DEC and The Americans

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  DEC and The Americans RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-25 17:26 +0300
    Re: DEC and The Americans Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-25 10:58 -0500
      Re: DEC and The Americans Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2016-01-25 11:47 -0500
      Re: DEC and The Americans John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> - 2016-01-25 16:47 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-01-25 17:41 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans mm0fmf <none@mailinator.com> - 2016-01-25 19:25 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2016-01-25 16:15 -0500
        Re: DEC and The Americans Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-25 13:17 -0500
          Re: DEC and The Americans Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-01-26 08:20 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans mausg@mail.com - 2016-01-26 11:32 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:23 -0600
          Re: DEC and The Americans Eric Pozharski <whynot@pozharski.name> - 2016-01-26 19:08 +0200
          Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:20 -0600
            Re: DEC and The Americans scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2016-01-27 19:40 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu> - 2016-01-27 22:40 -0800
        Re: DEC and The Americans Eric Pozharski <whynot@pozharski.name> - 2016-01-26 21:16 +0200
          Re: DEC and The Americans "Jack Myers" <jmyers@n6wuz.net> - 2016-01-28 10:07 -0800
      Re: DEC and The Americans "jack" <jkl8976@nospam.com> - 2016-01-26 05:48 +1100
      Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-26 13:56 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:43 -0600
          Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-27 15:42 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans pechter@pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) - 2016-02-03 00:36 +0000
              Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-02-03 14:25 +0000
    Re: DEC and The Americans Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-01-25 17:27 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-01-25 11:18 -0800
    Re: DEC and The Americans "jack" <jkl8976@nospam.com> - 2016-01-26 05:40 +1100
    Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-25 19:12 -0500
      Re: DEC and The Americans RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-26 14:22 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-01-26 16:20 +0100
          Re: DEC and The Americans Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-01-26 11:36 -0500
          Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-26 18:37 -0500
            Re: DEC and The Americans Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2016-01-27 03:58 +0000
              Re: DEC and The Americans Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-01-27 06:16 +0000
              Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-27 15:42 +0000
              Re: DEC and The Americans Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-01-27 18:14 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-26 18:34 -0500
    Re: DEC and The Americans bleep@compy.0-0 (Colonel Bleep) - 2016-01-30 07:07 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-30 09:43 -0500
        Re: DEC and The Americans Marek Novotny <marek.novotny@marspolar.com> - 2016-01-30 09:02 -0800
      Re: DEC and The Americans Alfred Falk <falk@arc.ab.ca> - 2016-01-30 20:36 +0000

Page 2 of 2 — ← Prev page 1 [2]

#10152

Charles Richmond wrote:
> "jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:PM00052A3CF4346EF5@aca46c41.ipt.aol.com...
>> Michael Black wrote:
>>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, RS Wood wrote:
>>>
>>>> Anyone here familiar with that TV series, The Americans?[1]  If you're
>>>> not,
>> I
>>>> can recommend it - it's pretty well done drama, set in about 1982
>> Washington
>>>> DC, where undercover KGB agents and the FBI are facing off.
>>>>
>>>> Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian
>>>> embassy
>> to
>>>> the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features a lot of
>>>> prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's desks.
>>>>
>>>> At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the
>> terminals
>>>> look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the desks of
>>>> the
>>>> FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: the VT100
>>>> reigned
>>>> from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond with the show.
>>>>
>>> But could the Soviets buy DEC computers?
>>
>
> One way the Soviets bought modern computers is to have a third-party in some
> other country, like Germany or France, to buy the U.S. computer.  The
> computer would be transferred to the USSR in secret.  So the Soviets could
> *not* legally buy advanced US computers, but they could buy them through
> back-alley deals.

They tried that but the VAX was intercepted, IIRC, in Germany.

/BAH

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#10255

In article <PM00052A523B95B608@aca4109b.ipt.aol.com>,
jmfbahciv  <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>Charles Richmond wrote:
>> "jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message
>> news:PM00052A3CF4346EF5@aca46c41.ipt.aol.com...
>>> Michael Black wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, RS Wood wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Anyone here familiar with that TV series, The Americans?[1]  If you're
>>>>> not,
>>> I
>>>>> can recommend it - it's pretty well done drama, set in about 1982
>>> Washington
>>>>> DC, where undercover KGB agents and the FBI are facing off.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian
>>>>> embassy
>>> to
>>>>> the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features a lot of
>>>>> prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's desks.
>>>>>
>>>>> At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the
>>> terminals
>>>>> look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the desks of
>>>>> the
>>>>> FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: the VT100
>>>>> reigned
>>>>> from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond with the show.
>>>>>
>>>> But could the Soviets buy DEC computers?
>>>
>>
>> One way the Soviets bought modern computers is to have a third-party in some
>> other country, like Germany or France, to buy the U.S. computer.  The
>> computer would be transferred to the USSR in secret.  So the Soviets could
>> *not* legally buy advanced US computers, but they could buy them through
>> back-alley deals.
>
>They tried that but the VAX was intercepted, IIRC, in Germany.
>
>/BAH

Yup...  let's see where it was... September 10, 1984 Computerworld.

Page 4 -- DEC fined 1.5 million following export investigation (this was
for a VAX 11/782 shipped via a German Company (Deutsche Integrated Time).

The owner of DIT (Richard Mueller) had been involved in the 1970's in two
export violation cases.

The VAX 11/782 was such a crock we should've let them have it.
IIRC -- I had to move memory between the main cpu and attached processor
so they could back up the beast at RCA's Semiconductor in Sommerville NJ...

A flawed design hack which was master/slave and lousy. Software support sucked.
They would've been better run as separate 11/780s... Probably put the 
Soviet computer program back a few years...

https://goo.gl/7G86LH

Bill
-- 
-- 
Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
pechter-at-gmail.com  http://xkcd.com/705/

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#10264

William Pechter wrote:
> In article <PM00052A523B95B608@aca4109b.ipt.aol.com>,
> jmfbahciv  <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>Charles Richmond wrote:
>>> "jmfbahciv" <See.above@aol.com> wrote in message
>>> news:PM00052A3CF4346EF5@aca46c41.ipt.aol.com...
>>>> Michael Black wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, RS Wood wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyone here familiar with that TV series, The Americans?[1]  If you're
>>>>>> not,
>>>> I
>>>>>> can recommend it - it's pretty well done drama, set in about 1982
>>>> Washington
>>>>>> DC, where undercover KGB agents and the FBI are facing off.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian
>>>>>> embassy
>>>> to
>>>>>> the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features a lot of
>>>>>> prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's desks.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the
>>>> terminals
>>>>>> look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the desks of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: the VT100
>>>>>> reigned
>>>>>> from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond with the show.
>>>>>>
>>>>> But could the Soviets buy DEC computers?
>>>>
>>>
>>> One way the Soviets bought modern computers is to have a third-party in
some
>>> other country, like Germany or France, to buy the U.S. computer.  The
>>> computer would be transferred to the USSR in secret.  So the Soviets could
>>> *not* legally buy advanced US computers, but they could buy them through
>>> back-alley deals.
>>
>>They tried that but the VAX was intercepted, IIRC, in Germany.
>>
>>/BAH
>
> Yup...  let's see where it was... September 10, 1984 Computerworld.
>
> Page 4 -- DEC fined 1.5 million following export investigation (this was
> for a VAX 11/782 shipped via a German Company (Deutsche Integrated Time).
>
> The owner of DIT (Richard Mueller) had been involved in the 1970's in two
> export violation cases.
>
> The VAX 11/782 was such a crock we should've let them have it.

<grin>  Some people in Marlboro had a similar opinion.

> IIRC -- I had to move memory between the main cpu and attached processor
> so they could back up the beast at RCA's Semiconductor in Sommerville NJ...
>
> A flawed design hack which was master/slave and lousy. Software support
sucked.

Yea, well, the OS people at the time had biases which would keep the
OS from making that hardware work.

> They would've been better run as separate 11/780s... Probably put the
> Soviet computer program back a few years...
>
> https://goo.gl/7G86LH

I wonder why DEC got fined.  The story I heard was that DIT was
about a third or maybe fourth party so that the Feds wouldn't
be able to track the sale.

/BAH

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#10121

In comp.misc RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> Anyone here familiar with that TV series, The Americans?[1]  If
> you're not, I can recommend it - it's pretty well done drama, set in
> about 1982 Washington DC, where undercover KGB agents and the FBI are
> facing off.

> Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian 
> embassy to the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features 
> a lot of prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's 
> desks.

> At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the 
> terminals look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the 
> desks of the FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: 
> the VT100 reigned from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond 
> with the show.

The IBM PC was released on August 12, 1981.  So, for a show set in
'about 1982' (assuming 'about' might correspond to say +-2 years, for
somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of that possible time window , there was
*no* IBM PC with which to grace anyone's desk.

Additionally, keep in mind the 'speed' with which government operates. 
A new desktop PC from IBM would not get 'adopted' by government agences
until well after its introduction.  In my case, I can pin down a date
of about 1994 for that occurring.

So the reality is, the IBM PC's gracing the desks on the FBI set are
the "typical Hollywood, got their facts mixed up" part, rather than the
VT-100's in the Russian embassy set.

But the actual reality would be more likely that neither the FBI
offices nor the Russian embassy offices in the 1980-1984 timeframs
would have had any 'computers' on individual desks (IBM PC's or VT-100s
or otherwise).  If there was even a computer in the building, there
would likely have been a limited number of shared terminals in a room
somewhere, not 'one per desk'.

> Then I thought, the Soviets had their own hardware around that time -
> I'd think they'd have chosen something native to the USSR rather than
> buying American hardware (which would run the [very real] risk of
> backdoors).

If they even had any tech more advanced than a phone and a Xerox copier
machine, I'd agree that they'd likely have tried to use homegrown tech. 
They (the Russians) where the one's who'd bugged the American embassy
in Moscow at that time with so many bugs it was basically unusable. 
Knowing that we'd likely try to do the same would have made the too
parinoid to trust American computer equipment.  And this assumes the
embassy would have had *any* computer equipment on site.  I'd hazzard a
guess that in 1980-1984 timeframe that embassies had zero computer
equipment on site.

> I'm wondering if there isn't room for a new age of minicomputers.  If 
> surveillance scares customers out of the cloud, there's room again for 
> something serious in the workplace.  Other than software-as-a-service, 
> why run the risk of offloading all your data to some cloud provider 
> (read Schneier's book!) when you can keep it in house.

The current 'cloud' is just yet another example of the pendulum
swinging between "centralized computing resources" and "distributed
computing resources[1]".  It's happened before, it will happen again. 
The next 'thing' will look a bit different, and will obviously have a
different _marketing_ name, but it is all the same-old same-old when
looked at through the skeptical eye.



[1] where in this instance 'distributed' means located near/on the desk
of the user instead of being accessed remotely.

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#10127

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
> The current 'cloud' is just yet another example of the pendulum
> swinging between "centralized computing resources" and "distributed
> computing resources[1]".  It's happened before, it will happen again. 
> The next 'thing' will look a bit different, and will obviously have a
> different _marketing_ name, but it is all the same-old same-old when
> looked at through the skeptical eye.

note necessarily strictly centralized ... but can be some degree of
sharing (peaks & lows of useage can occur differently, online
time-sharing from 60s was tracking peaks&lows across time-zones in the
US, 10am peak on the east coast happened before west coast even
started). The trade-off then is the overhead of shared processing versus
not-needing to provision every non-shared resource for peak load.

Mainframe shared resources at the time of IBM/PC was also slow to track
better price/performance technology ... IBM/PCs were tracking new
technologies much faster than large mainframes.

Lots of clouds are now doing frequent turn-over of enormous numbers of
"pc" grade technology ... as a trade-off between the two. Cloud volume
has even gotten to the point where the "PC" technology makers are doing
custom versions/chips specifically for that market. They have even
optimized system costs to the point that power&environmental has become
increasing dominate cost factor. Less & less system price/performance,
but increasingly watts/performance ... it led to threats that big clouds
would move to ARM (power use having been optimized for battery)
... until the I86 makers started paying more attention to
watts/performance (systems can be throw-away when next generation saves
them more in power than cost of system).

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

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#10125

"RS Wood" <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote in message 
news:dgmpjsF24gvU2@mid.individual.net...
> Anyone here familiar with that TV series, The Americans?[1]  If you're 
> not, I can recommend it - it's pretty well done drama, set in about 1982 
> Washington DC, where undercover KGB agents and the FBI are facing off.
>
> Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian embassy 
> to the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features a lot of 
> prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's desks.
>
> At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the 
> terminals look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the 
> desks of the FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: the 
> VT100 reigned from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond with the 
> show.
>
> That got me thinking about how likely it would be for a diplomatic mission 
> to invest in DEC terminals (and presumably a mini somewhere in the 
> basement to which you could connect) to do business.  What would you do 
> with them?  Word processing, maybe database work, but would they have 
> invested in custom software for something or other - processing visas or 
> equivalent?  Then I thought, the Soviets had their own hardware around 
> that time - I'd think they'd have chosen something native to the USSR 
> rather than buying American hardware (which would run the [very real] risk 
> of backdoors).  In 1982 would VT100s still have been anchored in academia, 
> science and research,

Nope, it had moved out to all sorts of places other than that, lots
of accountants had them, before the PC and Apple II showed up.

> or would they have already made the jump to other sectors

Yes.

> - such as diplomacy and bureaucracy?

Dunno about diplomacy but certainly lots of the
bureaucracy were using them for word processing etc.

> Final thought (mostly because I just finished Bruce Schneier's _Data and 
> Goliath_ - a highly recommended read that will show you in no uncertain 
> terms just how deeply the modern surveillance state goes[3]): I'm 
> wondering if there isn't room for a new age of minicomputers.  If 
> surveillance scares customers out of the cloud, there's room again for 
> something serious in the workplace.  Other than software-as-a-service, why 
> run the risk of offloading all your data to some cloud provider (read 
> Schneier's book!) when you can keep it in house.

Sure, but not done with minis.

> It might look different, say thin clients and VMWare serving centralized 
> desktops and a couple racks of storage servers etc., but is the move to 
> the cloud so inevitable?

No its not, and you can run your own cloud too.

> I kind of like the idea of everyone going back to a terminal on their desk 
> and some behemoth of a machine in the basement, quietly keeping everything 
> in-house.

That's what your own cloud is. Not with a terminal tho.

> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(2013_TV_series)
> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100
> [3] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22253747-data-and-goliath
> 

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#10130

In article <dgmpjsF24gvU2@mid.individual.net>, rsw@therandymon.com 
says...
If 
> surveillance scares customers out of the cloud, there's room again for 
> something serious in the workplace.  Other than software-as-a-service, 
> why run the risk of offloading all your data to some cloud provider 
> (read Schneier's book!) when you can keep it in house.  It might look 
> different, say thin clients and VMWare serving centralized desktops and 
> a couple racks of storage servers etc., but is the move to the cloud so 
> inevitable?  I kind of like the idea of everyone going back to a 
> terminal on their desk and some behemoth of a machine in the basement, 
> quietly keeping everything in-house.

"Something serious in the workplace"?

Define "serious".  The laptop that I got off of ebay for 200 bucks with 
the original XP that it came with installed on it will hammer an '80s 
supercomputer into the dust.  PCs are immensely "serious" today.  There 
are tasks which individual machines are not good at (generally those 
involving large numbers of users having shared access to live data) and 
there are applications that benefit from massively parallel 
architectures, but those are rather specialized and far more than most 
businesses need.

> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(2013_TV_series)
> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100
> [3] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22253747-data-and-goliath

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#10134

On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Something serious in the workplace"?
>
> Define "serious".  The laptop that I got off of ebay for 200 bucks
> with the original XP that it came with installed on it will hammer an
> '80s supercomputer into the dust.  PCs are immensely "serious" today.
> There are tasks which individual machines are not good at (generally
> those involving large numbers of users having shared access to live
> data) and there are applications that benefit from massively parallel
> architectures, but those are rather specialized and far more than most
> businesses need.

The fact that modern desktops have the computing power of old PDPs
doesn't have anything to do with deciding whether the old 'centralized'
model of computing has benefits that would be interesting today.  Ask
any sysadmin who has had to deal with a fleet of PCs, each user storing
his stuff locally, people emailing each other documents to collaborate,
etc.  

If modern PCs have high specs, hooray.  Now put a souped-up, modern,
high spec version of what used to be called  a PDP down in the basement,
and put a thin client on every desk.  Live happily ever after.
Ostensibly, if desktops are 1x10^6 times more powerful, our servers are,
too: a recipe for happiness.

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#10135

In article <n87ve9$b84$1@solani.org>, RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "Something serious in the workplace"?
>>
>> Define "serious".  The laptop that I got off of ebay for 200 bucks
>> with the original XP that it came with installed on it will hammer an
>> '80s supercomputer into the dust.  PCs are immensely "serious" today.
>> There are tasks which individual machines are not good at (generally
>> those involving large numbers of users having shared access to live
>> data) and there are applications that benefit from massively parallel
>> architectures, but those are rather specialized and far more than most
>> businesses need.
>
>The fact that modern desktops have the computing power of old PDPs
>doesn't have anything to do with deciding whether the old 'centralized'
>model of computing has benefits that would be interesting today.  Ask
>any sysadmin who has had to deal with a fleet of PCs, each user storing
>his stuff locally, people emailing each other documents to collaborate,
>etc.  
>
>If modern PCs have high specs, hooray.  Now put a souped-up, modern,
>high spec version of what used to be called  a PDP down in the basement,
>and put a thin client on every desk.  Live happily ever after.
>Ostensibly, if desktops are 1x10^6 times more powerful, our servers are,
>too: a recipe for happiness.

A lot of this cloud stuff will move back to "computers that you
own but are located somewhere on the net" from "computers that someone
else owns but are located somewhere on the net".

A lot of the moves towards others computers has been founded on
a huge squeeze in hosting. If you go out and buy colo (i.e. rack space)
you will pay around $2k/rack/month for rack, power, connectivity; if
you buy single racks without any particular buying power; and you need
reasonable access ; i.e. within EU, near large city. Building the
same redundancy in your own basement will cost lots more. Orders of
magintude more. Just having the diesels, power, batteries, cooling in 
costs millions. And double if you are in a standard office building.

If you are Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM you build all
of this yourself, or contract 1km2 or more. Then you pay $350/rack/month
to yourself. They can then sell the service LOTS cheaper, and will
include their services; and still make a bundle. And they have it available
now, not 7 months into the future.

Never mind that this is located in the Nevada desert, or in the Finnish
woods. 

-- mrr

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#10136

Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> wrote:
> In article <n87ve9$b84$1@solani.org>, RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>> On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> "Something serious in the workplace"?
>>> 
>>> Define "serious".  The laptop that I got off of ebay for 200 bucks
>>> with the original XP that it came with installed on it will hammer an
>>> '80s supercomputer into the dust.  PCs are immensely "serious" today.
>>> There are tasks which individual machines are not good at (generally
>>> those involving large numbers of users having shared access to live
>>> data) and there are applications that benefit from massively parallel
>>> architectures, but those are rather specialized and far more than most
>>> businesses need.
>> 
>> The fact that modern desktops have the computing power of old PDPs
>> doesn't have anything to do with deciding whether the old 'centralized'
>> model of computing has benefits that would be interesting today.  Ask
>> any sysadmin who has had to deal with a fleet of PCs, each user storing
>> his stuff locally, people emailing each other documents to collaborate,
>> etc.  
>> 
>> If modern PCs have high specs, hooray.  Now put a souped-up, modern,
>> high spec version of what used to be called  a PDP down in the basement,
>> and put a thin client on every desk.  Live happily ever after.
>> Ostensibly, if desktops are 1x10^6 times more powerful, our servers are,
>> too: a recipe for happiness.
> 
> A lot of this cloud stuff will move back to "computers that you
> own but are located somewhere on the net" from "computers that someone
> else owns but are located somewhere on the net".
> 
> A lot of the moves towards others computers has been founded on
> a huge squeeze in hosting. If you go out and buy colo (i.e. rack space)
> you will pay around $2k/rack/month for rack, power, connectivity; if
> you buy single racks without any particular buying power; and you need
> reasonable access ; i.e. within EU, near large city. Building the
> same redundancy in your own basement will cost lots more. Orders of
> magintude more. Just having the diesels, power, batteries, cooling in 
> costs millions. And double if you are in a standard office building.
> 
> If you are Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM you build all
> of this yourself, or contract 1km2 or more. Then you pay $350/rack/month
> to yourself. They can then sell the service LOTS cheaper, and will
> include their services; and still make a bundle. And they have it available
> now, not 7 months into the future.
> 
> Never mind that this is located in the Nevada desert, or in the Finnish
> woods. 
> 

Obviously it takes a pretty large compNy to be able to afford this.  Small
organizations will probably stick with hosting services.

-- 
Pete

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#10144

In article <iefknc-ml6.ln1@sambook.reistad.name>, 
first@last.name.invalid says...
> 
> In article <n87ve9$b84$1@solani.org>, RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> >On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> "Something serious in the workplace"?
> >>
> >> Define "serious".  The laptop that I got off of ebay for 200 bucks
> >> with the original XP that it came with installed on it will hammer an
> >> '80s supercomputer into the dust.  PCs are immensely "serious" today.
> >> There are tasks which individual machines are not good at (generally
> >> those involving large numbers of users having shared access to live
> >> data) and there are applications that benefit from massively parallel
> >> architectures, but those are rather specialized and far more than most
> >> businesses need.
> >
> >The fact that modern desktops have the computing power of old PDPs
> >doesn't have anything to do with deciding whether the old 'centralized'
> >model of computing has benefits that would be interesting today.  Ask
> >any sysadmin who has had to deal with a fleet of PCs, each user storing
> >his stuff locally, people emailing each other documents to collaborate,
> >etc.  
> >
> >If modern PCs have high specs, hooray.  Now put a souped-up, modern,
> >high spec version of what used to be called  a PDP down in the basement,
> >and put a thin client on every desk.  Live happily ever after.
> >Ostensibly, if desktops are 1x10^6 times more powerful, our servers are,
> >too: a recipe for happiness.
> 
> A lot of this cloud stuff will move back to "computers that you
> own but are located somewhere on the net" from "computers that someone
> else owns but are located somewhere on the net".
> 
> A lot of the moves towards others computers has been founded on
> a huge squeeze in hosting. If you go out and buy colo (i.e. rack space)
> you will pay around $2k/rack/month for rack, power, connectivity; if
> you buy single racks without any particular buying power; and you need
> reasonable access ; i.e. within EU, near large city. Building the
> same redundancy in your own basement will cost lots more. Orders of
> magintude more. Just having the diesels, power, batteries, cooling in 
> costs millions. And double if you are in a standard office building.
> 
> If you are Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM you build all
> of this yourself, or contract 1km2 or more. Then you pay $350/rack/month
> to yourself. They can then sell the service LOTS cheaper, and will
> include their services; and still make a bundle. And they have it available
> now, not 7 months into the future.
> 
> Never mind that this is located in the Nevada desert, or in the Finnish
> woods. 

We're going through that now, we have our own cloud but the Powers That 
Be are also looking into using Amazon's service.  There's a concern 
though because we are in a regulated industry with privacy requirements 
and it's not clear how thorougly Amazon can be trusted in that regard.

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#10148

On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> We're going through that now, we have our own cloud but the Powers That 
> Be are also looking into using Amazon's service.  There's a concern 
> though because we are in a regulated industry with privacy requirements 
> and it's not clear how thorougly Amazon can be trusted in that regard.

Frankly I don't understand the headlong rush of individuals and organizations
wanting to give up control of their data to some 3rd party. Once you do that
you have no idea where your information will ultimately wind up or who
will have access to it under what conditions.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

  NSA sedition and treason -- http://www.DeathToNSAthugs.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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#10149

On Wed, 27 Jan 2016 03:58:32 -0000 (UTC)
Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> wrote:

> On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> > We're going through that now, we have our own cloud but the Powers That 
> > Be are also looking into using Amazon's service.  There's a concern 
> > though because we are in a regulated industry with privacy requirements 
> > and it's not clear how thorougly Amazon can be trusted in that regard.
> 
> Frankly I don't understand the headlong rush of individuals and
> organizations wanting to give up control of their data to some 3rd party.
> Once you do that you have no idea where your information will ultimately
> wind up or who will have access to it under what conditions.

	For once you and I are in complete agreement.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN                                      | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

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#10153

Roger Blake wrote:
> On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>> We're going through that now, we have our own cloud but the Powers That
>> Be are also looking into using Amazon's service.  There's a concern
>> though because we are in a regulated industry with privacy requirements
>> and it's not clear how thorougly Amazon can be trusted in that regard.
>
> Frankly I don't understand the headlong rush of individuals and
organizations
> wanting to give up control of their data to some 3rd party. Once you do that
> you have no idea where your information will ultimately wind up or who
> will have access to it under what conditions.
>

This kind of stuff is cyclical.  Corporations run their own internal
systems; after a while, they deem it easier and cheaper to contract
the work out.  A similar thing is happening now.  Contracting out
byte management is the current norm.  In about 6 years, the cycle
will move to every system owner managing their own bytes.

/BAH

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#10154

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.folklore.computers.]

On 2016-01-27, Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> wrote:

> On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> We're going through that now, we have our own cloud but the Powers That 
>> Be are also looking into using Amazon's service.  There's a concern 
>> though because we are in a regulated industry with privacy requirements 
>> and it's not clear how thorougly Amazon can be trusted in that regard.
>
> Frankly I don't understand the headlong rush of individuals and organizations
> wanting to give up control of their data to some 3rd party. Once you do that
> you have no idea where your information will ultimately wind up or who
> will have access to it under what conditions.

Or whether you'll be allowed to get it back.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@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!

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#10143

In article <n87ve9$b84$1@solani.org>, rsw@therandymon.com says...
> 
> On 2016-01-26, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> > "Something serious in the workplace"?
> >
> > Define "serious".  The laptop that I got off of ebay for 200 bucks
> > with the original XP that it came with installed on it will hammer an
> > '80s supercomputer into the dust.  PCs are immensely "serious" today.
> > There are tasks which individual machines are not good at (generally
> > those involving large numbers of users having shared access to live
> > data) and there are applications that benefit from massively parallel
> > architectures, but those are rather specialized and far more than most
> > businesses need.
> 
> The fact that modern desktops have the computing power of old PDPs
> doesn't have anything to do with deciding whether the old 'centralized'
> model of computing has benefits that would be interesting today.  Ask
> any sysadmin who has had to deal with a fleet of PCs, each user storing
> his stuff locally, people emailing each other documents to collaborate,
> etc.  
> 
> If modern PCs have high specs, hooray.  Now put a souped-up, modern,
> high spec version of what used to be called  a PDP down in the basement,
> and put a thin client on every desk.  Live happily ever after.
> Ostensibly, if desktops are 1x10^6 times more powerful, our servers are,
> too: a recipe for happiness.

I already addressed the point you think you are introducing.  If you 
want to beat a dead horse be my guest.

However your souped up PDP, which is going to be pathetically puny 
compared to any PC, is still going to require a PC on the desktop of 
every user in order to have any functionality.  Of course it may be 
called a "terminal" or a "thin client" or some such, but the cheap way 
to manufacturer such today is to buy a commodity PC and cripple it.

Oh, by the way, since you're on about PDPs and suchlike, let me remind 
you that I drive a z machine for a living.

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#10203

On Mon, 25 Jan 2016 17:26:04 +0300, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian 
>embassy to the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features 
>a lot of prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's 
>desks.
>
>At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the 
>terminals look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the 
>desks of the FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: 
>the VT100 reigned from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond 
>with the show.

Oh, they reigned much later than 1982...


>That got me thinking about how likely it would be for a diplomatic 
>mission to invest in DEC terminals (and presumably a mini somewhere in 
>the basement to which you could connect) to do business.  What would 
>you do with them?  Word processing, maybe database work, but would they 
>have invested in custom software for something or other - processing 
>visas or equivalent?  Then I thought, the Soviets had their own 
>hardware around that time - I'd think they'd have chosen something 
>native to the USSR rather than buying American hardware (which would 
>run the [very real] risk of backdoors).  In 1982 would VT100s still 
>have been anchored in academia, science and research, or would they 
>have already made the jump to other sectors - such as diplomacy and 
>bureaucracy?

Without getting into the weeds of this thread, I'd just like to point out that
VT100s were "standard" serial-line ASCII terminals, and did not necessarily need
to be connected solely to DEC equipment.  DEC had a thriving terminals division
that could well have been a stand-alone business, and the VT100 was just one of
their products, although it was perhaps the most popular.  Many VT100s were used
on non-DEC computers. or paired with a modem for dial-up access.

That being said, in 1982 few companies outside of the computer sector would have
terminals of any kind on every desk.  More likely in many business would be very
selective deployment and/or a shared terminal room.  And I doubt embassies used
computers much at all in the early '80s -- what would be their application?
Certainly not word-processing of sensitive documents -- too many security
problems.  Even if they did have a computer and terminals, they would probably
be located in a back room, out of sight of visitors.

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#10205

In article <56ac6141.3102871@nntp2.rawbw.com>, bleep@compy.0-0 says...
> 
> On Mon, 25 Jan 2016 17:26:04 +0300, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> >Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian 
> >embassy to the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features 
> >a lot of prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's 
> >desks.
> >
> >At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the 
> >terminals look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the 
> >desks of the FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: 
> >the VT100 reigned from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond 
> >with the show.
> 
> Oh, they reigned much later than 1982...
> 
> 
> >That got me thinking about how likely it would be for a diplomatic 
> >mission to invest in DEC terminals (and presumably a mini somewhere in 
> >the basement to which you could connect) to do business.  What would 
> >you do with them?  Word processing, maybe database work, but would they 
> >have invested in custom software for something or other - processing 
> >visas or equivalent?  Then I thought, the Soviets had their own 
> >hardware around that time - I'd think they'd have chosen something 
> >native to the USSR rather than buying American hardware (which would 
> >run the [very real] risk of backdoors).  In 1982 would VT100s still 
> >have been anchored in academia, science and research, or would they 
> >have already made the jump to other sectors - such as diplomacy and 
> >bureaucracy?
> 
> Without getting into the weeds of this thread, I'd just like to point out that
> VT100s were "standard" serial-line ASCII terminals, and did not necessarily need
> to be connected solely to DEC equipment.  DEC had a thriving terminals division
> that could well have been a stand-alone business, and the VT100 was just one of
> their products, although it was perhaps the most popular.  Many VT100s were used
> on non-DEC computers. or paired with a modem for dial-up access.
> 
> That being said, in 1982 few companies outside of the computer sector would have
> terminals of any kind on every desk.  More likely in many business would be very
> selective deployment and/or a shared terminal room.  And I doubt embassies used
> computers much at all in the early '80s -- what would be their application?
> Certainly not word-processing of sensitive documents -- too many security
> problems.  Even if they did have a computer and terminals, they would probably
> be located in a back room, out of sight of visitors.

In 1982, at UTC Hamilton Standard, which makes space suits among other 
things, there were IIRC a dozen or so terminals on the third floor for 
the engineering department which consisted of several hundred engineers 
and a somewhat larger number of draftsmen.  Most of us were not allowed 
to touch the terminals--if we wanted to run a program we had to submit 
it in the basement as a card deck--the terminals were dedicated for CAD 
and were only to be used by people designated for that function.

It was the old "high priests and acolytes managing worship of the IBM 
God" in full force.  The next place I worked, the only computers we had 
were PCs, but there were only 5 of them in the whole company.

And at the next job there were three PCs with about 30 VT-100 clones--
that would have been in the early '90s.  A computer on every desk didn't 
really come along until some time in the late '90s or early '00s.

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#10209

On 2016-01-30, J. Clarke <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> In 1982, at UTC Hamilton Standard, which makes space suits among other 
> things, there were IIRC a dozen or so terminals on the third floor for 
> the engineering department which consisted of several hundred engineers 
> and a somewhat larger number of draftsmen.  Most of us were not allowed 
> to touch the terminals--if we wanted to run a program we had to submit 
> it in the basement as a card deck--the terminals were dedicated for CAD 
> and were only to be used by people designated for that function.
>
> It was the old "high priests and acolytes managing worship of the IBM 
> God" in full force.  The next place I worked, the only computers we had 
> were PCs, but there were only 5 of them in the whole company.
>
> And at the next job there were three PCs with about 30 VT-100 clones--
> that would have been in the early '90s.  A computer on every desk didn't 
> really come along until some time in the late '90s or early '00s.

I think I caught the tail end of that era. I became a tech in 1994.
Certified on NetWare 3.12 / 4.x at the time. And I remember working at a
bank when people still used DOS, Windows 3.11 and physical terminals
attached to an IBM. I specifically remember certain departments having
two computing devices on each desk. A PC, running DOS / Windows,
connected to a NetWare server and a Terminal. 

As Windows 95 and the 32bit era started to trickle in, I replaced both
of those machines with Windows 95 on a new desktop with terminal
emulation software. I remember having CC:Mail and a terminal on the same
box. Our own trouble ticket software ran on an IBM and we used the
terminal emulator to access it all day long. 

-- 
Marek Novotny
https://github.com/marek-novotny

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#10213

bleep@compy.0-0 (Colonel Bleep) wrote in
news:56ac6141.3102871@nntp2.rawbw.com: 

> On Mon, 25 Jan 2016 17:26:04 +0300, RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>
> wrote: 
>>Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian 
>>embassy to the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features 
>>a lot of prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's 
>>desks. 
>>
>>At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the 
>>terminals look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the
>>desks of the FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: 
>>the VT100 reigned from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond 
>>with the show. 
> 
> Oh, they reigned much later than 1982...
> 
> 
>>That got me thinking about how likely it would be for a diplomatic 
>>mission to invest in DEC terminals (and presumably a mini somewhere in 
>>the basement to which you could connect) to do business.  What would 
>>you do with them?  Word processing, maybe database work, but would they
>>have invested in custom software for something or other - processing 
>>visas or equivalent?  Then I thought, the Soviets had their own 
>>hardware around that time - I'd think they'd have chosen something 
>>native to the USSR rather than buying American hardware (which would 
>>run the [very real] risk of backdoors).  In 1982 would VT100s still 
>>have been anchored in academia, science and research, or would they 
>>have already made the jump to other sectors - such as diplomacy and 
>>bureaucracy? 
> 
> Without getting into the weeds of this thread, I'd just like to point
> out that VT100s were "standard" serial-line ASCII terminals, and did
> not necessarily need to be connected solely to DEC equipment.  DEC had
> a thriving terminals division that could well have been a stand-alone
> business, and the VT100 was just one of their products, although it was
> perhaps the most popular.  Many VT100s were used on non-DEC computers.
> or paired with a modem for dial-up access. 
> 
> That being said, in 1982 few companies outside of the computer sector
> would have terminals of any kind on every desk.  More likely in many
> business would be very selective deployment and/or a shared terminal
> room.  And I doubt embassies used computers much at all in the early
> '80s -- what would be their application? Certainly not word-processing
> of sensitive documents -- too many security problems.  Even if they did
> have a computer and terminals, they would probably be located in a back
> room, out of sight of visitors. 

Hmmm... my PPOE (a government R&D agency) moved into a new building in 1986.  
During planning and design it was thought a group of public terminals near 
the computer room would be sufficient, allowing that a few people around the 
building would also have terminals on their desks.  By the time the building 
was occupied there was a terminal on nearly every desk. (Staff was about 
250.)  And when I started work there as a regular employee in 1988, most of 
of those were VT220's and VT320's.  Most of the VT100's were junk by then. 
(Also we were beginning to plan for ethernet to all offices, which happened 
by 1993.)

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