A Raspberry Pi (VAX) Cluster

http://www.designspark.com/content/raspberry-pi-vax-cluster

by mikecane • 14 years ago

59 19 14 years ago

designspark.com

jel• 14 years ago

"I love it when a (geeky) plan comes together!"

excuse-me4• 14 years ago

And the sheer unadulterated wonderful pointlessness of it !

gouranga2• 14 years ago

Ahh the memories.

At my first proper job, we had a 8 node VAXCluster running Oracle 7, VB3 clients on Windows 3.1 on Compaq and DEC machines, Motif clients on Solaris 2.4 on SparcStations :)

The VAXCluster had 100% uptime for 4 years when they killed it and replaced it with Alpha machines.

excuse-me4• 14 years ago

I remember DEC sending out a fix for the "day 10000 bug".

Some system counter would wrap around if it was up for 10000days (27years)! Compare it with the Windows95 49day bug that nobody ever reached.

Hoff• 14 years ago

Some DEC code for OpenVMS had been converting variables containing times using the Unix epoch date to and from the OpenVMS-format dates* using the LIB$ LIBRTL calls, and the LIBRTL calls had a documented format limit of 9,999 days.

When 19-May-1997 rolled around, you needed to use a different conversion sequence for your Unix epoch dates, or to have applied the then-available LIBRTL 10K Delta Time patch that extended the permitted day field.

More to the OP's point, the longest continuous OpenVMS server uptime I'm aware of was around seventeen years.

The downside of that being seventeen years of unapplied patches.

*VMS uses 17-Nov-1958 as its base date; that date was chosen to match the date commonly used by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

tytr• 14 years ago

Yet people criticised the VAX. I guess every computer has its flaws (nothing is perfect!), but was the criticism of the VAX justified? (Assuming uptime and reliability means anything, and compared to what followed it. Windows NT? C'mon.)

It is just one more bit of evidence that tells me that many of the supposed "experts" on matters of computing are anything but. There's FUD and then there's just people who just have no idea what they're saying. (Of course the CEO of DEC got caught making the dumbest comment ever. No one is immune.) Maybe we should just focus on results and not what people say?

Oxryly• 14 years ago

Totally sour grapes, but I sure get tweaked when I see people doing cool things with toys that are ostensibly available but that I can't buy yet because...

mrbill• 14 years ago

I ordered two RPi boards on February 29th or whatever day they became available for pre-order. The first one shipped from Newark/Element14 about 2-3 weeks ago, and the second one arrived this past Friday. Did I just get lucky, timing-wise?

noonespecial• 14 years ago

Its not just you. I haven't gotten mine yet either. Should be coming along now from Newark any day now...

Its funny. My jaw dropped initially, not because of the cool software hack, but because here was a fellow that had managed to get two raspis!

egypturnash• 14 years ago

You too. Mine's been back-ordered since I ordered it. Which was within the first 24 hours after the launch.

yardie• 14 years ago

My credit card was charged 3 weeks ago and still nothing in my mailbox.

seclorum• 14 years ago

I bought a Pandaboard ES on Friday, it was on my desk by Monday. 3 times the cost, but about 5 times the power.

easp• 14 years ago

You know what? Grapes grow in clusters.

But yeah, I still want Raspberry Pi

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Heh, if you'd like a real MicroVAX 3900 to play with I can hook you up :-) (or 3100, or 3200, or 3300, or 3400, or 4000/200 or 4000/400 or you get the picture)

sciurus• 14 years ago

OT, but I'm getting desperate to find a home for the VAX described below before my dad scraps it. He purchased it several years ago from a man in north Georgia who said it spend the 1990s answering the phone at a utility company. My dad kept it in his classroom while he was a high school technology teacher, but now that he's no longer teaching it's gathering dust on his carport.

There's a Vaxstation 3, DECvoice unit, two hard drives, and a tape drive in an enclosure on wheels. There's also a VT420 terminal. Pictures are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/puerexmachina/sets/721576229810...

If anyone is interested, or could put me in touch with VAX collectors, please email me. My contact info is in my profile.

cheatercheater• 14 years ago

Reblogging to a place that might help find a good home for your VAX.

A Raspberry Pi (VAX) Cluster

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