eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (07/08/88)
43 sites are now participating in the beta. We have lots of Suns, 80386
boxes and VAXen, a sufficiency of 3B1s and other random 680xx machines,
enough 80286es, and a couple of WE320xx machines. Conventional UNIX boxen
are, at this point, quite well represented.
Then we come to the oddballs. An Amdahl, a couple of Pyramids, a MIPS machine,
an HP9000 and even a UNIVAC (excuuuse me, that's `UniSys') 1100. For beta-ing
purposes, I love those weird machines -- and I'd like to see more of them.
So bring on your ones-complement machines, your multiprocessor boxes, your
vectorizing supercomputers, and your crufty ancient mainframes. The more
bizarre your machine is the better I'll like it (you still need to be a UNIX
site, though; I'd like to port to VMS and OS/2 but those could take a while).
So far, things have gone pretty smoothly. The most serious problems reported
have been glitches in the Configure script due to nonportable shell constructs
introduced during alpha test (not by me, I might add!). Several sites have
reported complete configuration and compilation of the software and have
started on the port validation procedure, a series of tests designed to show
that the various layers and pieces of the news software function up to spec.
Fixes for reported problems with beta level 0 have just been sent out as beta
patch 1. Said patch also includes some optimizations that cut news processing
costs significantly for sites that are leaf or twig nodes.
Returns from live testing, with real feeds from 2.11 and older sites, should
start coming in by early next week.
contact name (fullname) Phone processor Sta UNIX version
--------------- --------------- -------------- ----------- --- -------------
amdahl!gam G. A. Moffet (408)-746-8287 Amdahl 5890 P1 SVr3.1
arnold!dave Dave Arnold (714)-586-5894 AT&T 3B1 P1 SVr1
att!tgt Tim Thompson (614)-860-7026 3B5, 3B20 P1 SVr3
barris!tim Tim Tegtmeier (701)-282-5750 NCR 32/600 P1 SVr2
bigtex!james ~ Van Artsdalen (512)-328-0280 80386 P1 Microport V/386
cbmvax!grr George Robbins (215)-431-9836 VAX 11/750 P1 Ultrix 1.2
cocktrice!mdm Mike Mitchell (505)-662-6296 80286 P1 SVr2
cooper!mayer Mayer Ilovitz (212)-353-4350 Intel310 P1 XENIX3.0
crdos1!davidsen Bill ~ (518)-387-6489 80386 P1 SCO XENIX V
csccat!jack ~ Hudler (214)-661-8960 HP9000 P1 HP-UX 5.22
cvedc!dheinen Dave Heinen (503)-645-2410 Sun 2 P1 SunOS 3.5
datacube!cag Chris Gantz (617)-535-6644 Sun 3/280 W1 SunOS 3.5
devon!paul ~ Sutcliffe Jr (717)-295-5478 TRS80-16 P1 XENIX
daver!dlr Dave Rand (408)-721-7099 32000 W1 V.[23]
elan!jlo Jeff Lo (415)-322-2450 MicroVax II W1 Ultrix 1.1
eplrx7!lad Lawr. Deleski (302)-695-9013 MicroVax II P1 MORE/4.3BSD
hoptoad!gnu John Gilmore (415)-221-6524 Sun 3 P1 SunOS 3.2
jackson!egranthm Ewan Grantham (601)-354-6454 Unisys 5000 W1 SVr2
killer!wisner Bill Wisner (208)-286-7335 3B2/500 P1 SVr3.1.1
libove!jay Jay Libove (412)-621-9649 80286 W1 XENIX 222.1
mcf!shan Sharan Kalwani (313)-833-0710 VAX 11/750 P1 4.3BSD
lts!root Kurt Baumann (703)-478-0010 AT&T 3B2 P1 System V
mips!koblas David Koblas (408)-991-0287 MIPS P1 4.3BSD
ncc!lyndon ~ Nerenberg (403)-421-8181 Sun 3/280 - SunOS 3.[45]
obdient!blair Doug Blair (312)-653-5527 80386 P1 Microport SVr3
oss410!tkevans Tim K. Evans (301)-965-3286 VAX P1 4.2BSD
otishq!root Harry Skelton (703)-222-6889 68020 W1 SV
pbox!pete ~ Rourke (918)-664-0724 80386 P1 SCO XENIX 2.2.3
polyslo!steve ~ DeJarnet (805)-756-2147 Pyramid 90x P1 OSx4.4
pyrdc!mike ~ Whitman (703)-848-2050 Pyramid 90x P1 OSx4.4
sco!stephm Steph Marr (800)-626-4381 80386 P1 SCO XENIX Vr3
splut!jay Jay Maynard (713)-332-3376 PC/AT clone P1 Microport 2.3.0
stanton!donegan Steven ~ (714)-474-2033 286 - SCO 2.2.1
telesci!gaa Gary Algier (609)-866-1000 Sun 3/50 W1 SunOS 4.0
telesof!bruceb B. Bergman (619)-457-2700 Sun 2 P1 SunOS 3.4
toleran!jane ~ Medefesser (408)-433-5588 VAX 11-780 W1 4.2BSD
u1100a!krohn Eric Krohn (201)-699-4501 Unisys 1100 W1 SVr2
unisec!dpw Darryl Waggoner (617)-226-1344 3B1 - 3.51
urbsdc!darrell ~ McIntosh (217)-384-8509 Gould 9080 W1 UTX 2.0
vader!bcs212 Vince Skahan (215)-591-4116 Apollo P1 Ersatz 4.2BSD
vu-vlsi!perry Rick Perry (215)-645-4224 Pyramid 90x P1 OSx3.1
wb3ffv!howard ~ Leadmon (301)-335-2206 80386 + TB P1 Microport V/386
winfree!bdale ~ Garbee (719)-590-2868 32016 W1 4.3BSD
Particular wants at this point: a SPARC site, a Cray site, an IBM/370 site,
and as many other different flavors of these newfangled RISC boxes as we can
scare up (what's that you say? a SIMD trinary-logic machine with 42-bit words
running Version 9? I want it! :-)...)
--
Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
UUCP: ..!{uunet,att,rutgers!vu-vlsi}!snark!eric Smail: eric@snark.UUCP
Post: 22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) (07/10/88)
In article <dXny5#sE7hf=eric@snark.UUCP>, eric@snark.UUCP writes: > Then we come to the oddballs. An Amdahl, a couple of Pyramids, a MIPS machine, > an HP9000 and even a UNIVAC (excuuuse me, that's `UniSys') 1100. For beta-ing > purposes, I love those weird machines -- and I'd like to see more of them. > > So bring on your ones-complement machines, your multiprocessor boxes, your > vectorizing supercomputers, and your crufty ancient mainframes. The more > bizarre your machine is the better I'll like it (you still need to be a UNIX > site, though; I'd like to port to VMS and OS/2 but those could take a while). One serious quesiton: Does anyone plan on doing an OS-9 port? Several companies are starting to pick this up, plus, the RatShack CoCo3 running Lev II OS-9 is pretty boffo (especially for an 8bit machine). I don't see any reason it wouldn't be able to support news -- it's pretty damn close to Unix, it multitasks, and you can put megs and megs of HD on it. The 68xxx based OS-9 boxes are great, there's just not a lot of them out there. (best coco3 setup I've seen yet: 512K RAM, 30Mb HD, 3 floppy drives, 2Mhz 68b09e 8-bit processor.) Oh well, just a question. If you want, I'll port to a RatShack Model I, Level II. :-) -- Skate UNIX or go home, boogie boy... [Obscure joke goes here] J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007 ..!bellcore!tness1!/
egranthm@jackson.UUCP (Ewan Grantham) (07/11/88)
In article <1080@flatline.UUCP>, erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) writes:
:>
:> Does anyone plan on doing an OS-9 port? Several companies are starting
:> to pick this up, plus, the RatShack CoCo3 running Lev II OS-9 is pretty
:> boffo (especially for an 8bit machine). I don't see any reason it
:> wouldn't be able to support news -- it's pretty damn close to Unix,
:> it multitasks, and you can put megs and megs of HD on it.
:> Oh well, just a question.
:>
:> If you want, I'll port to a RatShack Model I, Level II. :-)
:> --
OK, I have the same question to ask about the amiga. It multi-tasks, you can
give it megs of RAM and megs of HD, and it certainly would be nice to have
a true news feed at home instead of a mail feed of news
Anyone interested in making the port?
--
Ewan Grantham (601) 354-6454 ext.358
...!uunet!nuchat!amyerg!egranthm or
{pyramid or bellcore or tness..}!swbatl!jackson!egranthm
I'm not responsible for my bosses, and vice-versaeric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (07/11/88)
In article <1080@flatline.uucp>, erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) writes: >Does anyone plan on doing an OS-9 port? [...] I don't see any reason it >wouldn't be able to support news -- it's pretty damn close to Unix, >it multitasks, and you can put megs and megs of HD on it. I have a friend in NYC who's been talking about doing this for over a year, but he's no more than grade C as a C/UNIX hacker (not his fault, he's had too little time to learn). Translation: if you want an OS/9 port, you'll probably have to do it yourself. Good luck, and should you be apprehended the secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions. This article will self-destruct in 5 seconds.... -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) UUCP: ..!{uunet,att,rutgers!vu-vlsi}!snark!eric Smail: eric@snark.UUCP Post: 22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718
eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (07/12/88)
In article <278@jackson.uucp>, egranthm@jackson.UUCP (Ewan Grantham) writes: > Anyone interested in making the [Amiga] port? If you can port 3.0 to the Amiga I will *definitely* take those #ifdefs for the distribution. -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) UUCP: ..!{uunet,att,rutgers!vu-vlsi}!snark!eric Smail: eric@snark.UUCP Post: 22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718
erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) (07/14/88)
In article <dZ4WF#UdShi=eric@snark.UUCP>, eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) writes: > In article <1080@flatline.uucp>, erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) writes: > >Does anyone plan on doing an OS-9 port? [...] I don't see any reason it > >wouldn't be able to support news -- it's pretty damn close to Unix, > >it multitasks, and you can put megs and megs of HD on it. > Translation: if you want an OS/9 port, you'll probably have to do it yourself. > Good luck, and should you be apprehended the secretary will disavow all > knowledge of your actions. This article will self-destruct in 5 seconds.... HAHAHAHA. Right. Let me spend some monopoly-money on some vaporware and I'll get right to it. Port to OS-9 on my 3b1. Suuuuuuurrrre. (Actually, I'm working out what would be involved in porting OS-9 to the 3b1. Film at 11.) -- Skate UNIX or go home, boogie boy... [Obscure joke goes here] J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007 ..!bellcore!tness1!/