Sponsored Content
Full Discussion: Vintage unix
Special Forums UNIX Desktop Questions & Answers Vintage unix Post 302485266 by cjcox on Tuesday 4th of January 2011 06:13:12 PM
Old 01-04-2011
I tried to install Linux onto an old 486sx box. Needed as much memory as possible, so I upgraded it to 20M (the max) and had to purchase EXPENSIVE cache chips as well.

$800 later (yes.... $800!!!!).... I had a machine that was slow and practically worthless.

Remember that the REASON why Linux (and even Unix) became doable was when Windows 95 came on the scene and we started seeing machines with 8M of memory. So... not saying you can't use an old machine... just don't go REALLY old.

Also, as others pointed out you pretty much have to match the machine/architecture for the "vintage" Unix. Sometimes it has to be a VERY precise match. Old version of SCO Unixware for example only worked on VERY specific pieces of hardware.

In general... IMHO... it's not worth the effort. Now... if you want to take an old machine and experiment with writing your own OS from scratch... knock yourself out... it can be great fun.

Oh... and lastly... people are THROWING away good old equipment that is actually useful... so I wouldn't pay anything for old hardware. For example, you should be able to snag a Pentium III host for nothing. And some of the servers there had at 2G or more of memory even. I wouldn't pay more than $50 USD for a Pentium IV based system (and those are also getting thrown out for free everywhere).

If you're in the Dallas area... I'll give you a 2cpu Opteron 246 workstation with 4G. That's a VERY powerful host. I'll even throw in 2 10K rpm SCSI drives. You can pick up the same for $100-200 easily on ebay.

Also.. (back on topic)... remember that 80's Unix (real Unix, be it BSD or SysV) was tty focused and NOT network focused. So ethernet controllers, esp, before 1985, if present, were often times AUI or 10Base2 (token ring at 4mbit was probably more popular). A lot of the parts on equipment that old, e.g. the disks, are likely to be in very bad shape.
 

7 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

UNIX problem? Unix programm runs windows 2000 CPU over 100%

Okee problems...!! What is happening: Unix server with some programms, workstations are windows 2000, the workstations work good but when you start a programm on the Unix server the CPU of the workstations go to 100% usage resulting that the system gets very slow. The programm well its running so... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: zerocool
2 Replies

2. Filesystems, Disks and Memory

How to mount and read vintage scsi HDD

I started on another thread and full story can be seen here: https://www.unix.com/security/91428-how-reset-root-password-old-unix-system-v.html But my situation turned to land on this thread now. I have old scsi HDD out of the UHC UNIX System V Rel. 4.0 Version 3.6 box. And need to read... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: 82026
1 Replies

3. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How does unix system administration, unix programming, unix network programming differ?

How does unix system administration, unix programming, unix network programming differ? Please help. (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: thulasidharan2k
0 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

File Transfer from Window server to UNIX and UNIX to UNIX

Dear All, Can someone help to command or program to transfer the file from windows to Unix server and from one unix server to another Unix server in secure way. I would request no samba client. (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: yadavricky
4 Replies

5. What is on Your Mind?

Anyone Running Vintage UNIXen?

Like SunOS, AT&T Unix or anything else of that era... anything running MGR as a graphics subsystem? I'd enjoy hearing from people that may have used MGR back in the day. I have something of a collection of 32bit Suns sun4c, sun4m, sun4d etc..nothing bigger than an 8 way 85Mhz SS1000E though. The... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: cb88
0 Replies

6. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Extended vs vintage

I am having issues with the MOS (my oracle support) page. I downloaded the new critical patch and oct patchset. for solaris 10 64. However, I noticed that that the Entitlement class read vintage instead of extended in which we bought the service. can anyone tell me the difference? it is safe... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: goya
0 Replies

7. What is on Your Mind?

Vintage!!! Jimmy Page/Jeff Beck/Eric Clapton-Stairway to Heaven

You must watch this music video. Jimmy Page/Jeff Beck/Eric Clapton-Stairway to Heaven https://youtu.be/wKlEVtA_TGQ Long before there was surveillance capitalism, Google, FB and dystopian social media, there was Jimmy Page! This is how it all "used to be" before mankind was reduced to... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: Neo
0 Replies
CMDEBUG(1)						       AFS Command Reference							CMDEBUG(1)

NAME
cmdebug - Reports the status of a host Cache Manager SYNOPSIS
cmdebug -servers <machine> [-port <IP port>] [-long] [-refcounts] [-callbacks] [-ctime] [-addrs] [-cache] [-cellservdb] [-help] cmdebug -s <machine> [-p <IP port>] [-l] [-r] [-cal] [-ct] [-a] [-cac] -ce] [-h] DESCRIPTION
The cmdebug command displays information about the Cache Manager and client cache status on a local or remote AFS client machine. By default, it displays all locked cache entries, but other information can be requested via various options. CAUTIONS
The -ctime option is only available with OpenAFS version 1.4.7 and later or version 1.5.28 or later. This option can be used to gather information from any version of the Unix OpenAFS client, but can only query Windows clients running OpenAFS version 1.5.28 or later. The -cellservdb option is only available with OpenAFS version 1.4.7 and later or version 1.5.31 or later. This option can be used to gather information from any version of the Unix OpenAFS client, but can only query Windows clients running OpenAFS version 1.5.31 or later. OPTIONS
-servers <machine> Names the client machine for which to display Cache Manager status. Provide the machine's IP address in dotted decimal format, its fully qualified host name (for example, fs1.example.com), or the shortest abbreviated form of its host name that distinguishes it from other machines. Successful use of an abbreviated form depends on the availability of a name resolution service (such as the Domain Name Service or a local host table) at the time the command is issued. -port <IP port> Identifies the port on which to contact the Cache Manager. By default, the standard port 7001 is used, so this option is very rarely needed. -long Reports on all lock statuses and all cache entries, rather than only locked cache entries. Do not use this option with -refcounts, -callbacks, -addrs, -cache, or -cellservdb. -refcounts Reports only those cache entries with non-zero reference counts. Do not use this option with -long, -callbacks, -addrs, or -cache. -callbacks Reports only those cache entries with callbacks. Do not use this option with -long, -refcounts, -addrs, or -cache. -ctime Causes entry expiration times to be shown in human-readable format. Do not use this option with -addrs or -cache. -addrs Rather than showing any cache entries, displays the interfaces the Cache Manager answers on, including their netmasks and MTUs. This is useful for analyzing clients that are multihomed and identifying problems with netmasks or MTU settings. Do not use this option with -long, -refcounts, -callbacks, or -cache. -cache Rather than showing any cache entries, displays the cache configuration for the client machine. The information displayed is essentially the information that can be configured via parameters to afsd. Do not use this option with -long, -refcounts, -callbacks, or -addrs. -cellservdb Lists all known volume location database records in a CellServDB-compatible format. This includes all records in memory, including those from the CellServDB file, DNS SRV or AFSDB records, and the fs newcell command. This option could be used to see if a client has the latest copy of the CellServDB file. Do not use this option with -long, -refcounts, -callbacks, or -cache. -help Prints the online help for this command. All other valid options are ignored. EXAMPLES
Displays all of the locked cache entries on "client1": % cmdebug client1 Displays the cache configuration for "client1.example.com": % cmdebug client1.example.com -cache Displays all cache entries for "client2.example.com": % cmdebug client2.example.com -long PRIVILEGE REQUIRED
None SEE ALSO
afsd(8), CellServDB(5), fs_newcell(1) COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2005 Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> This documentation is covered by the IBM Public License Version 1.0. This man page was written by Russ Allbery for OpenAFS. OpenAFS 2012-03-26 CMDEBUG(1)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 01:11 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy