12-Jan-2010 12:48Alpha's descendants

Shades of Alpha

I don't know how many of you are following the whole Apple-iPod-tablet-netbook-thingy, but just thought I'd throw this out there, as it does relate to OpenVMS, in a circuitous fashion.

Do any of you remember Dan Dobberpuhl?  He was the lead on the Alpha 21064 design team, who later went on to lead Digital's StrongARM team.  After that, he started his own little company in the south Bay Area.  In a little town call Palo Alto, they worked on StrongARM- and Power-based processors.

His company?  Palo Alto Semi, or more commonly referred to as P.A. Semi.  Yes, the same P.A. Semi recently acquired by Apple, and oft cited as the most likely source for the processor in the upcoming Apple tablet computer.

Alpha is dead.  Long live Alpha!

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21-May-2009 12:26Fun with lexicals

f$delta_time trick

Just a shorty for you.  How do you tell in a command procedure if a file was created today?  I'm talking about a one-liner, with no temporary files, piping, nor jumping hurdles with f$cvtime... (more)

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18-Apr-2009 10:40My Digital Collection

My AlphaMug

This item has a little bit of a story behind it.  According to the story I was told, it was designed by engineers.

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18-Mar-2009 11:58My Digital Collection

Canvas shopping bag

Here's another Digital souvenir I picked up many years ago.  Like Digital computers, it has proven to be very rugged and robust, seen much use, and lasted a long time.

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02-Mar-2009 13:05Personal Challenge

The story of the Pro

Like many others, I subscribe to a variety of podcasts on a variety of topics.  This morning, I listened to this week's episode of the MacCast which, it turns out, was entirely an interview with one person.

Avram Miller was the project manager for the DEC Pro 350 PC back in the early 80's.  While the interview was interesting to listen to, I found myself poking around his blog.  There, I found a real gem, in an article entitled Digital Equipment Movie about the Professional Computer Series, 1983. This previously unreleased video, Personal Challenge, (43 minutes) documented the birth of the DEC PC family, specifically focusing on the Pro 350.

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28-Feb-2009 13:40My Digital Collection

Stoneware coffee mugs

As a launching point for what I hope to be a continuing series, here's My Digital Collection, the various trinkets, nick-nacks, and other marketing goodies I collected over the years.

To start off with, I'll go with my favorite item: my stoneware coffee mugs.  I've got 4 of these; I use them every single day and they don't have a single nick.

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02-Jan-2009 22:10Print, baby, print?

Wireless printing to a USB printer

I've had an HP LaserJet 3050 multifunction printer in my home office for quite some time now.  This USB printer was chosen because it supports PCL-6 and Postscript, making it a great option for integrating with my Windows laptop, as well as printing from specialized apps on VMS via a SSH tunnel through my laptop (all I had to do was share the printer using LPD under Windows, then point the tunnel to the to the right port on the PC.  Whenever I'm logged in, I can print from my work systems.)

 

But today, I wanted to be able to print from my home Hobbyist AlphaServer.

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25-Aug-2008 16:48Burn, baby, burn

Burning ISO 9660 CDs

So, you've got to make an ISO-9660 compatible CD for whatever reason.  In my case, I've got to upgrade some Itaniums, and they need firmware updates, too.

I found that there's plenty of documentation (well, if you can count as high as 1) for the CDRecord.com procedure (specifically, @CDRecord Help), but not much on actually using Sys$System:CDRecord.exe, and practically none for using that to burn what's commonly called an ISO image file.

But I think I've figured out how.

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