Computer Museum curator in a kilt

[the_scott_meister]

Found a story on Foxnews the other day about Paul Allen's (Microsoft co-founder) computer history museum in Seattle. Apparently he's a big collector of computer stuff and alot of the items in his museum is from his own personal collection. Interesting museum but the thing that caught my eye is that the curator, "Senior Vintage Systems Engineer" is in a kilt. Neet article for all of us computer geeks, but check out the 4th picture. He proudly sports what looks like a Utilikilt.

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2012/11/0 ... r-techies/

[GerdG]

It certainly is a UK.

[crfriend]

Oh, wow! The machine in the second photo is one of my all-time favourites and it is wonderful to see one powered up and running.

Note to self: Must schedule a train trip to Seattle and the West coast.

[skirtyscot]

From that description, I thought it was you at the museum, Carl!

[crfriend]

From that description, I thought it was you at the museum, Carl!

I wish! It's been altogether too bloody long that I've seen a KI-10 running. Think close to 30 years. I do have the logic prints (formerly known as "schematics"), though, and occasioanlly leaf through them for nostalgia's sake.

That and I don't own a Utilikilt. I think they look forced.

However, I have been having fun at my own personal computer museum today and have "lit up" a VAXstation 3100 and a DECstation 3100, both of which have been quiescent (read, sadly neglected and unused) for about 5 years. Both still work, but need replacement of some of the NiCAD battery packs that keep their power-down brains in place. I may be lighting off another of my oldies once I get back from dinner -- an Intergraph "InterPro 2020" named "Maddog". The latter was brought up short by incompatible connectors (the "Connector Conspiracy").

A humourous note may be had on the DECstation 3100 and the InterPro 2020 in that their UNIX "date" commands do not understand years beyond 2000.

[SkirtRevolution]

More normal everyday pictures like this with men wearing kilts/skirts is the way to go. People just need to see it as a everyday normal thing.

[skirtyscot]

More normal everyday pictures like this with men wearing kilts/skirts is the way to go. People just need to see it as a everyday normal thing.

Yes, this journalist merely notes the kilt without trying to make a big deal of it. This is what we want!

[Tor]

Looks like a fun museum, though not an area I have terribly much reason to go. And thanks Carl -- it's always fun to take a gander at the jargon file.

Tor

[skirtingtheissue]

I hope they have a PDP-8/S, the first computer I fooled around on (in 1969). The size of a refrigerator, and a whopping 4K of memory! I had it composing random haikus in various subjects. It was also fun getting the ASR-33 Teletype to punch out paper tape in the shapes of actual letters so as to create banners. I'd love to see this museum... in a skirt of course.

[the_scott_meister]

The first computer I used in Jr High was a Commodore Pet. It had a cassette tape drive and we loaded games from it. Quite fun. One of the instructors had an Apple something and I thought that was the coolest thing because it could do a galaxy simulation graphic. But the very first computer I ever saw was the TRS-80. It was a demo my parents took me to at a hotel conference room in about '79 or '80. Good times.

I thought that they were just awesome back then, now I sit in front of one all day long and I effin hate it. It would be much better if I could do it in a skirt though. Some day.

[crfriend]

I hope they have a PDP-8/S, the first computer I fooled around on (in 1969).

I don't see mention of an 8/S in their collection, but I am aware of one at the Rhode Island Computer Museum that's recently been restored to operational condition after much work. As far as 8s in general go, the Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island have an 8/e, an 8/I, a couple of 8/a, and a LINC-8 that I am currently working on restoring to a runnable condition. That last one is a rough go as the device had been badly neglected for a number of years and got quite wet at least once which did some damage to the backplanes. The 8/e and the 8/a machines run.

The first computer I used in Jr High was a Commodore Pet.

The first one that I actually used to do useful and interesting things with was a Data General NOVA 840 at my old high school. The machine is currently in my personal collection and still runs to this day. The Wikipedia picture is of my machine.

[skirted_in_SF]

The first one that I actually used to do useful and interesting things with was a Data General NOVA 840 at my old high school. The machine is currently in my personal collection and still runs to this day. The Wikipedia picture is of my machine.

Carl,
Is that the DG machine that was the subject of the book Soul of a New Machine? I think that is the right title, I read it about 25 years ago and the author's name is misplaced in the back of my old brain.

Edit:
Never mind, I just read the wikipedia article you linked to.

[crfriend]

Is that the DG machine that was the subject of the book Soul of a New Machine? I think that is the right title, I read it about 25 years ago and the author's name is misplaced in the back of my old brain.

Nope, it was a prior beast dating to 1972. The one in Tracy Kidder's book was the first of the MV series of 32-bit machines that went head-to-head with DEC's VAX line. Interestingly, I have never encountered an MV in my professional or personal life, but given the comparison I've seen between DEC's and DG's operating systems, and from what I've heard, AOS/VS was quite a bit better than VAX/MVS. 16-bit AOS, from my limited exposure to it was light-years ahead of any of the -11 operating systems that DEC had, making DG's marketing slogan, "A Generation Ahead" ring true. Even RDOS was better than anything that DEC had for the -11.

VAX/VMS lives on in your desktop today if you run Windows NT and it's successors. The core of that, known as Mica -- the "next revision of VMS" -- was in development at DEC when the designer and architect, Dave Cutler, bailled from DEC for Microsoft in DEC's waning days and took the source-code with him. And it's followed precisely the same path that all of Cutler's other operating systems have; it takes several major revisions once he leaves the development staff for it to get stable, after which it actually works quite well.

At assorted periods in my career I tried getting a job at DEC, was told I "wasn't qualified to work on -11s" and immediately went to work for another company on -10s. CRF 1, DEC 0. In another, I tried to chase a dream and went for a gig at DG and was told that I "wasn't intellectual enough". CRF 1, DG 0. I still like old iron, however, and both companies produced some beauties; I shed a tear or two when DG went down -- the last minicomputer company to do so -- but not so much as a whimper for DEC. DEC had it coming, and had been actively trying to commit suicide for years.

[renesm1]

Interesting note on VMS:

The next letter after V is W, after M comes N and S is followed by T.

(VMS)+1=WNT (Windows NT)

Coincidence???

[skirted_in_SF]

Interesting note on VMS:

The next letter after V is W, after M comes N and S is followed by T.

(VMS)+1=WNT (Windows NT)

Coincidence???

Don't know, MS always claimed it meant New Technology (if I remember correctly)