#trilema | 2018-12-14

http://btcbase.org/log/2018-12-14#1880808 << on 2nd thought, 'no reported breaches' could mean 1 of 2 things !

13:23

a111

Logged on 2018-12-14 01:57 mircea_popescu: tbh, a recuperative scholarly series on sns would be most apt use of scholar's time.

13:24

( and not necessarily the 1 implied by commenter.. )

13:25

in exactly same way that 'no reported thefts of gold from ft.knox' can mean 1 of 2 things.

13:26

( see also e.g. http://btcbase.org/log/2017-05-23#1660268 )

13:26

a111

Logged on 2017-05-23 02:41 asciilifeform: per dijkstra's 'testing can demonstrate the presence of bugs, but never their absence'

~ 16 minutes ~

13:43

feedbot

http://qntra.net/2018/12/germany-changes-sex-entries-in-birth-registry-to-add-third-diverse-option/ << Qntra -- Germany Changes Sex Entries In Birth Registry To Add Third "Diverse" Option

~ 40 minutes ~

14:24

mircea_popescu

hey, wasn't proclaimed the golden veal. merely worth documenting.

14:24

mircea_popescu

since we're apparently all into bolixology or w/e you'd call it.

14:27

mircea_popescu: believe or not, bolix aint even the least-gettable old/interesting comp

14:28

e.g. xerox lispm is rarer still ( and had own merits, which i pieced together 100% from docs and surviving photos and won't even go into in depth because approx as questionable as archaeology of merv... )

14:29

lotsa ancient artifacts are imho worth documenting. tricky bit is getting at the surviving crumbs.

14:29

mircea_popescu

sure.

14:30

specifically in re 'iron built for reliability', 'tandem' was interesting. i dun expect to ever lay hands on 1 , tho

14:31

even the old ibm irons have a few things to teach pc re redundant/votingcircuit scheme.

14:32

( i.e. box had multiple cpu that had to majority-agree re outcome of a cycle )

14:33

reportedly items like this are being orbited , as cost-saving measure in place of ye olde saphire semiconductors. but there's ~nuffin publicly written re just how built.

14:34

afaik all such schemes still suffer at least 1 'jesus bolt'.

14:36

the win, when there is a win, is that you can make the jesusbolt 'stateless', i.e. if particle whacks it, it resets and retries the last cycle rather than going into metastable strange

14:36

*

asciilifeform distant from subj, cannot comment in detail re how well worx

~ 3 hours 10 minutes ~

17:46

asciilifeform: i worked on tandem for a bit (known by then as HP NonStop), i appreciated the architecture, but entire software stack was cobol

17:47

well, i appreciated it in theory, didn't have enough active drive to grok it, nor the necessary background

17:47

oh hey interesting phf

17:48

i still remember one of the cobol guys pulling out random bits from it on day one and going "i can just pull a bunch of things and it keeps working"

17:48

btw phf i hate to repeat meself but am i ever gonna see that bolixgem you dug up, or will i have to get whole thing from xray

17:48

( the crate is slated to arrive tomorrow morning... )

17:49

well, you'll still have to xray some, because i barely have anything on macivory, but i'll go over the scans this weekend. i actually have (miracle of miracles) free weekend coming up

17:49

mircea_popescu: i'ma prolly end up xraying with own hands, i dun trust heathen derps with the jools

17:50

phf: defo will have to xray, but thought 'oh hey possibly phf's material will give sumthing to correct against'

17:50

what i could really use is some PAL/GAL src. if ever turns up. will make the affair go 9000x quicker.

17:51

( fwiw i still dunno if the bolix people set the lock bit in those things or not; possibly they didn't even )

17:52

phf: my current plan for that box is , roughly, http://btcbase.org/log/2018-12-13#1880521

17:52

a111

Logged on 2018-12-13 18:53 asciilifeform: 1st logical step , on the magic day when asciilifeform has both pcb layout and GAL contents nailed down, will prolly be to make an exact physical copy of the board.

17:53

( i aint gonna stick to the period srams/drams, cuz that'd be simply dumb , each really belongs as 1 chip )

17:53

( and really dun need dram at all, the drams on the daughterboard are all connected through period auto-refresher ic that presents as a sram )

17:54

so you want to make a replica that plugs into same hardware? i thought you'd want to do a fake mac harnes first?

17:54

i.e. get macivory working outside of macintosh context

17:54

phf: when thought about it, realized it was mistake : gotta find what the external-to-cpu logic on that thing actually does

17:55

plus i'ma need ivorytron with direct probes on the cpu lines, and there aint any room for such a thing in the orig

17:55

fair

17:55

you know if ivory on macivory actually replaceable, the way it is on xl?

17:56

( actually 1st item will actually be to ditch the ancient scsi hdd and replace with solidstate. i'd hate to lose the box to platter rot )

17:56

phf: socketed

17:56

in fact damn near errything but the filter caps is socketed.

17:56

yeah, the scsi/solidstate adapter exists, is actively used for "retro hardware"

17:57

aha

17:58

fortunately was quite gettable

17:58

( didn't exist ~5y ago when i last contemplated doing all of this )

~ 1 hours 31 minutes ~

19:29

feedbot

http://danielpbarron.com/2018/this-goes-against-all-human-rationality/ << Daniel P. Barron -- This goes against all human rationality.

19:30

phf: i am thinking, instead of burning time on emulating 'nubus' and ancient crapple, when working (from mac-side pov) clone exists i'ma drive it directly via onboard ft2232hl or similar ( the mac-side src , i've had for yrs, and it's quite straightforward re what is done to the card; once i know what specifically happens on the card when nubus regs are written, may as well do it from pc directly to/from the ivory cpu via usb-to-5v-f

19:30

ifo )

19:31

a sort of anal feeding, if you will.

19:32

the item can then be used as fairly compact instrument to probe behaviour of the chip vs. the old emulators.

19:35

incidentally, i had potentially interesting notion: a modern-day digicam ccd, of e.g. 25 'megapixel', is just about dense enuff that one could take a meaningful xray of the ivory die, if one could be found that responds to xray..

19:36

very much an open q tho.

19:37

danielpbarron: full bore calvin, eh

19:38

danielpbarron

me? no, calvinism leads to hell

19:38