Re: FW: WTT: 1.5G of PC2700 for 1G of PC100

[Skeezics Boondoggle-2]

On Thu, 1 May 2008, Bill Bradford wrote:

> On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 01:03:01PM -0500, Steve Hatle wrote:
> > Why should that take 30 hours? Hit the Big Red Button and BOOM data center
> > is shut down.
> > Should only take a minute or two at most...
>
> [0] Previously, it had not had any sort of protective cover, labeling,
> etc - everyone just knew what it was.  Now it had a flip-up cover like
> a fire alarm, along with descripive labeling.

Back in my ISP days, ours was labeled "HISTORY ERASER BUTTON".  We
sometimes used it as a shortcut for 2AM Sunday maintenance when we
needed to boot nearly 1,000 dialup users off.  We'd shut down the Suns
and the NetApp, then punch the switch (rather than individually halt
over 30 Netblazers).  Mostly it was just fun to hear 1,000 relays in
the Microcom rack modems all click off at once, like a bunch of angry
crickets. :-)  Silence in a datacenter is always a little eerie,
though...

It was always astonishing to start powering the modems back on at
3:30-4AM on a Sunday and see them start to fill up almost as quickly
as they finished initializing.  "Don't these people have lives?" asked
the guys who were there flying on caffeine patching SunOS4 kernels at
4AM on a Sunday... ah, 1995.  Back when you could actually get a tan
from the Blinky Lights(tm) in the racks and racks of modems, and four
T1's were more than enough bandwidth for 25,000 dialup users...

-- Chris
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[Bill Bradford]

On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 04:57:56PM -0700, Skeezics Boondoggle wrote:
> It was always astonishing to start powering the modems back on at
> 3:30-4AM on a Sunday and see them start to fill up almost as quickly
> as they finished initializing.  "Don't these people have lives?" asked
> the guys who were there flying on caffeine patching SunOS4 kernels at
> 4AM on a Sunday... ah, 1995.  Back when you could actually get a tan
> from the Blinky Lights(tm) in the racks and racks of modems, and four
> T1's were more than enough bandwidth for 25,000 dialup users...

In '96, ioNET had a remote office in Tulsa (we were in OKC) and had one guy
up there who did sales, tech support, etc, for all our Tulsa users.  By this
time we had the US Robotics modem banks (what was it, six or eight modems
on a card?  Fed the box with an ISDN PRI).

The Windows-based remote control software for the modem banks let you
manually toggle the LEDs for each line, independent of the actual state of
the connection.

We got bored one day, and went about doing things that bored geeks will do.

Two hours later, we got a call from our buddy in Tulsa, who had looked over
to see the LED matrix on the modem bank spelling out "HI JEFF" 8-)

The "glory days" of the ISP business were great.

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
Houston, Texas
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[Carl R. Friend]

    On Thu, 1 May 2008, Skeezics Boondoggle wrote:

> Silence in a datacenter is always a little eerie, though...

    Silence in a big computer room is one of the most creepy
sensations I've ever had.  Even *scheduled silence* is creepy.

    The first place I worked at after escaping technical school
ran PDP-10s as their front-line systems, and the *machines* (and
their peripherals) were all UPS backed (with a locomotive-engine-
powered generator out in the parking-lot backing that); when the
power quit the lights in the computer rooms would go off, we'd
hear the A/C bits spin down, then the generator would spin up
(a frightful thing in and of itself; the first time I witnessed
that I was outside about 20 feet from it, and I damn near wet
myself), and finally the lights would come back up and the
A/C bits would come back.  The room with all the computers
running, with only the sound of their fans, and the look of
their lights (this was back in the lights-and-switches era) was
actually quite pleasant.

    The time we scheduled downtime to do work on the power
infrastructure was different, and we used the time as a test
some of the mechanisms to SCRAM the room.  We gracefully halted
the machines first, and then pegged *THE BUTTON*; the room went
dark (lit again by the battery-powered lamps mind you), the
A/C spun down, and the machines went dark.  One could literally
hear a pin drop in the room.  It was frightening.  (I get the
willies at home when there's no fan or disk noise, so I guess
the "need" is in-born.)

    Then there was the HALON test.  But that's a story for a
different day.

+------------------------------------------------+---------------------+
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin)            | West Boylston       |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast            | Massachusetts, USA  |
| mailto:crfriend@...                        +---------------------+
| http://users.rcn.com/crfriend/museum           | ICBM: 42:22N 71:47W |
+------------------------------------------------+---------------------+
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[Gary Goddard]

Thanks bill now I've got to clean the coke i was drinking off my keyboard :D

Gaz

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 1:17 AM, Bill Bradford <mrbill@...> wrote:

> On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 04:57:56PM -0700, Skeezics Boondoggle wrote:
> > It was always astonishing to start powering the modems back on at
> > 3:30-4AM on a Sunday and see them start to fill up almost as quickly
> > as they finished initializing.  "Don't these people have lives?" asked
> > the guys who were there flying on caffeine patching SunOS4 kernels at
> > 4AM on a Sunday... ah, 1995.  Back when you could actually get a tan
> > from the Blinky Lights(tm) in the racks and racks of modems, and four
> > T1's were more than enough bandwidth for 25,000 dialup users...
>
> In '96, ioNET had a remote office in Tulsa (we were in OKC) and had one
> guy
> up there who did sales, tech support, etc, for all our Tulsa users.  By
> this
> time we had the US Robotics modem banks (what was it, six or eight modems
> on a card?  Fed the box with an ISDN PRI).
>
> The Windows-based remote control software for the modem banks let you
> manually toggle the LEDs for each line, independent of the actual state of
> the connection.
>
> We got bored one day, and went about doing things that bored geeks will
> do.
>
> Two hours later, we got a call from our buddy in Tulsa, who had looked
> over
> to see the LED matrix on the modem bank spelling out "HI JEFF" 8-)
>
> The "glory days" of the ISP business were great.
>
> Bill
>
> --
> Bill Bradford
> Houston, Texas
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

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[Bill Bradford]

On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 07:17:45PM -0500, Bill Bradford wrote:
> Two hours later, we got a call from our buddy in Tulsa, who had looked over
> to see the LED matrix on the modem bank spelling out "HI JEFF" 8-)

The hardware looked something like this, but with more modems per card:

http://i19.ebayimg.com/02/i/000/a5/59/2366_3.JPG

http://www.magyari.com/USR%20Alums/images/Total%20Control%20Chassie.jpg

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
Houston, Texas
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[Mike Loewen]

On Thu, 1 May 2008, Carl R. Friend wrote:

>   Then there was the HALON test.  But that's a story for a
> different day.

    Back in the '80s, I worked on the Air Defense computer system at
McChord AFB.  One day (fortunately I wasn't working that shift), a hapless
Lieutenant managed to trigger the Halon system in the display room.  Not
only did it kill power to the system, but it dropped a set of baffles in
the air conditioning ducts which required about 3 hours to reset.

    I suspect his next assignment may have been Adak, Alaska...


Mike Loewen mloewen@...
Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/
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[wa2egp]

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Gaz God" <gaz.god@...>
>
> Thanks bill now I've got to clean the coke i was drinking off my keyboard :D
>
> Gaz

When Bill gets bored (or retired) he should go through the archives and put
stuff like this together and publish a book of geek humor.  I almost disrupted
my 4th block Physics class during a test. :)

Bob
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[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 1, 2008, at 20:20 , Carl R. Friend wrote:

>   On Thu, 1 May 2008, Skeezics Boondoggle wrote:
>
>> Silence in a datacenter is always a little eerie, though...
>
>   Silence in a big computer room is one of the most creepy
> sensations I've ever had.  Even *scheduled silence* is creepy.

I'm still not decided when it is more creepy: these days with lot's of  
little machines, or the old days with one or a few big ones.

The first time I was in a large mainframe/mini room and we shut it  
down, the first thing in my head was, "It's so quiet.  I wonder if it  
will ever run again..."

Of course, if the sound really doesn't come back, it's kind of an  
auditory notation that your job won't be coming back either... :)

>   The time we scheduled downtime to do work on the power
> infrastructure was different, and we used the time as a test
> some of the mechanisms to SCRAM the room.  We gracefully halted
> the machines first, and then pegged *THE BUTTON*; the room went
> dark (lit again by the battery-powered lamps mind you), the
> A/C spun down, and the machines went dark.  One could literally
> hear a pin drop in the room.  It was frightening.  (I get the
> willies at home when there's no fan or disk noise, so I guess
> the "need" is in-born.)

Seems like it.

Two weeks ago I retired my last Sun machines.  I replaced them with  
one machine that is faster than all of them, and also nearly silent.

Even though I like the quiet and can get more work done, it took me  
several days to get used to it.

Now I can hear other pieces of equipment that I never knew made any  
noise.

Ideally I'll get some Sun or other nice gear again in the future, but  
it's so expensive and I like quiet machines near me.

Then again, I might move to a place where I can build a computer  
room.  I'm pretty hopeless like that.



--
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."
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[Sridhar Ayengar]

Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>>> Silence in a datacenter is always a little eerie, though...
>>
>>   Silence in a big computer room is one of the most creepy
>> sensations I've ever had.  Even *scheduled silence* is creepy.
>
> I'm still not decided when it is more creepy: these days with lot's of
> little machines, or the old days with one or a few big ones.

My vote goes to big machines.  When you hear a large number of large
three-phase blowers (with their low-frequency sound) spinning down, it
reinforces the impression that something very big has gone very wrong.
Like something is wrong with the Earth or something.

Peace...  Sridhar
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[Joshua Boyd]

On Fri, May 02, 2008 at 04:27:48PM -0400, Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> Two weeks ago I retired my last Sun machines.  I replaced them with  
> one machine that is faster than all of them, and also nearly silent.

That is sad.
 
> Even though I like the quiet and can get more work done, it took me  
> several days to get used to it.

In the apartment I lived in, the computers were in the living room and
there was no where you could go in the apartment to get quiet.

When we moved into our house in October, the computer got their own area
in the basement, and our bedroom and home office is on the second
floor.  My wife complained for a week that she couldn't sleep because it
was now to  quiet, and perhaps we should consider moving a few machines
up to the office to help her sleep.  I was rather amused.

But I like  the relative silence.  Truth is though that I can hear my G4
from anywhere on that floor.  Well, I could until I turned it off
because the hard drive was starting to fail.  I'll fix that soon though.
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[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 2, 2008, at 16:47 , Joshua Boyd wrote:

> On Fri, May 02, 2008 at 04:27:48PM -0400, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>
>> Two weeks ago I retired my last Sun machines.  I replaced them with
>> one machine that is faster than all of them, and also nearly silent.
>
> That is sad.

I know, I really hated to do it.

However, facts are facts:

The new server is whisper quiet and powerful, and runs 24/7 regardless  
of load, and is very easy to care for.

The Sun systems were far too hot and power hungry for the work they  
could do.

A Sun system with enough power costs more than I can afford.  That  
alone pretty much kills the idea of me replacing them with more Sun  
systems, plus most of them are pretty noisy and power hungry.

I did look at Sun x86, but the truth is they are just PCs, and they  
are bigger than the Dell while offering the same speed and storage.

It was just really hard to justify another Sun right now.

However... times change, and I'm expecting my lack of a "server room"  
to be temporary, so who knows what's coming in the future.

I'm also not ruling out future Sun x86, it just wasn't a good idea  
right now.

>> Even though I like the quiet and can get more work done, it took me
>> several days to get used to it.
>
> In the apartment I lived in, the computers were in the living room and
> there was no where you could go in the apartment to get quiet.
>

> When we moved into our house in October, the computer got their own  
> area
> in the basement,

That's a good arrangement.  I wish...

> But I like  the relative silence.  Truth is though that I can hear  
> my G4
> from anywhere on that floor.  Well, I could until I turned it off
> because the hard drive was starting to fail.  I'll fix that soon  
> though.

I can now hear the fans speed up to cool off my NAS server now.  
Before I thought it never ran hot enough to trigger them... :)

For the first time in about 12 years, I can hear the heads on hard  
drives chattering.

Of course, you know what happens when you get rid of "all but one  
server"...

--
Shannon Hendrix
shannon@...
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[Joshua Boyd]

On Fri, May 02, 2008 at 07:57:53PM -0400, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
 
> Of course, you know what happens when you get rid of "all but one  
> server"...

Yeah, that one server decides to follow the rest in leaving you.

;)
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[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 2, 2008, at 19:58 , Joshua Boyd wrote:

> On Fri, May 02, 2008 at 07:57:53PM -0400, Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>
>> Of course, you know what happens when you get rid of "all but one
>> server"...
>
> Yeah, that one server decides to follow the rest in leaving you.

Well, I have a plan for that.

When I say "one server", I mean one is powered on... :)

But yeah, I already have thought of that.

For one thing, right now the new machine is doing *EVERYTHING*,  
including DNS and proxy, so it makes it hard to play with it a lot.

The "consolidation" and cleanup is part of a longer process really,  
and "one server" is temporary until I can make some changes.

The big thing was getting rid of 5 space heaters that were just  
getting too old to justify.

The next project is to move DNS and proxy off of the Solaris box so  
that when I shut it down I don't lose those services for the other  
machines.

Right now I can't play much with the new server because it's doing  
double-duty.

The project is to build a tiny dedicated server, and by tiny I mean  
I'd like it to be as small as no bigger than a small switch... 2  
inches high, 6x6 or something.

Notebook drive and/or flash storage.

Ideally it would not have a wal-wart either, and I really want it to  
have gigabit ethernet if possible.






--
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."
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[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Shannon Hendrix <shannon@...>
>Date: 2008/05/02 Fri PM 11:55:53 CDT
>To: The Rescue List <rescue@...>
>Subject: Re: [rescue] FW: WTT: 1.5G of PC2700 for 1G of PC100

<snip>

>The project is to build a tiny dedicated server, and by tiny I mean  
>I'd like it to be as small as no bigger than a small switch... 2  
>inches high, 6x6 or something.
>
>Notebook drive and/or flash storage.
>
>Ideally it would not have a wal-wart either, and I really want it to  
>have gigabit ethernet if possible.

Intel Little Valley D201GLY2A [0] might be a good choice - it runs about $70, takes up to 2 Gig of RAM, has dual SATA connectors, and a gigabit Ethernet card can be added to the PCI slot. Depending on use, a multi-port Ethernet card could be added instead...

2x6x6 might be tough - esp. without a wall-wart, but small is doable - the SATA connectors on the Intel MB can mate to SATA laptop drives, and with suitable power adapters, you would be in business. The Intel board also does 64-bit OS, though the graphics on-board can be a challenge for Solaris/Linux (you need to choose VESA mode, as the default drivers are not good over 800x600).

I'm sorry if I've become a broken record on this little board, I really like it. I just got a nice $50 case from newegg - it has room for 2x 3 1/2" drives, a 5 1/4" optical drive, a decent PS and room for a mATX board.[1]

Lionel

[0] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121333

[1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811121027
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[Steven M Jones]

Shannon wrote:

>> The project is to build a tiny dedicated server, and by tiny I mean  
>> I'd like it to be as small as no bigger than a small switch... 2  
>> inches high, 6x6 or something.
>>    

My first thought was of a Soekris box. My second thought was, "Wait, how
slow are those CPUs?"  And thirdly, they definitely need a plug wart. On
the other hand, the low power consumption is ideal when they meet your
needs.

Then Lionel wrote:

> Intel Little Valley D201GLY2A [0] might be a good choice - it runs about $70,

So my question is, how's the support for using it in a headless
configuration? The thing I liked about Intel's ISP 1x00/2x00 servers was
that they supported serial consoles in the BIOS. Maybe not perfectly,
but well enough to avoid those obnoxious "remote access" kludges.

--S.
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[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 3, 2008, at 13:15 , Lionel Peterson wrote:


> Intel Little Valley D201GLY2A [0] might be a good choice - it runs  
> about $70, takes up to 2 Gig of RAM, has dual SATA connectors, and a  
> gigabit Ethernet card can be added to the PCI slot. Depending on  
> use, a multi-port Ethernet card could be added instead...

The PCI slot is not fast enough for gigE.  I found that out the hard  
way last year.

I looked at this board already and almost got one.

Still thinking about it, but really want gigE and/or a bus fast enough  
to support it.

One of the Linux based router boards is also very nice, but it too has  
only 100baseT networking.

However, one company has said they will make one with gigabit on PCIe  
in a SFF board, so maybe I should just wait.

> 2x6x6 might be tough - esp. without a wall-wart, but small is doable  
> - the SATA connectors on the Intel MB can mate to SATA laptop  
> drives, and with suitable power adapters, you would be in business.  
> The Intel board also does 64-bit OS, though the graphics on-board  
> can be a challenge for Solaris/Linux (you need to choose VESA mode,  
> as the default drivers are not good over 800x600).

I don't care about graphics, it will never be doing anything but a  
text console, and will move to serial as soon as the OS is installed.

The most likely OS would be NetBSD.

The wall-wart I can live with, I just really, really hate them, and  
I've not been too impressed with their long-term reliability so far.

My networking shelf already has tons of them and I HATE HATE HATE HATE  
them.




--
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."
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[Shannon Hendrix]

On May 3, 2008, at 15:04 , Steven M Jones wrote:

> Shannon wrote:
>
>>> The project is to build a tiny dedicated server, and by tiny I  
>>> mean  I'd like it to be as small as no bigger than a small  
>>> switch... 2  inches high, 6x6 or something.
>>>
>
> My first thought was of a Soekris box. My second thought was, "Wait,  
> how slow are those CPUs?"  And thirdly, they definitely need a plug  
> wart. On the other hand, the low power consumption is ideal when  
> they meet your needs.

One possible solution to the wall-wart problem is to get a decent 8-
plug "hideaway" wall-wart manager.

They are kind of expensive for a power strip, but it might be worth  
the $$$ just to keep the annoying things out of my way.

> So my question is, how's the support for using it in a headless  
> configuration? The thing I liked about Intel's ISP 1x00/2x00 servers  
> was that they supported serial consoles in the BIOS. Maybe not  
> perfectly, but well enough to avoid those obnoxious "remote access"  
> kludges.

What I really, really want is not serial BIOS where video is  
converted... I want a real serial BIOS, designed to be serial from the  
start.

That one change would be a profound improvement on PC systems.

I really find it hard to believe no one has done it.  They can even  
keep the standard video BIOS and just create a CLI to control it as a  
front-end to talk to it and CMOS.

It's amazing what kind of crap the industry will put up with.

--
Shannon Hendrix
shannon@...
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[Jeff Cole]

Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> What I really, really want is not serial BIOS where video is
> converted... I want a real serial BIOS, designed to be serial from the
> start.

I recently obtained 1U box with a Tyan S5112 motherboard in it. It looks
like it may support serial BIOS. One of the BIOS options is console
re-direction.

I haven't really had a chance to check it out yet, but, plan to do so in
the next week or so.
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[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Steven M Jones <smj+rescue@...>
>Date: 2008/05/03 Sat PM 02:04:52 CDT
>To: The Rescue List <rescue@...>
>Subject: [rescue] Small servers (was Re: WTT: 1.5G of PC2700 for 1G of PC100)

>Shannon wrote:
>
>>> The project is to build a tiny dedicated server, and by tiny I mean  
>>> I'd like it to be as small as no bigger than a small switch... 2  
>>> inches high, 6x6 or something.
>>>    
>
>My first thought was of a Soekris box. My second thought was, "Wait, how
>slow are those CPUs?"  And thirdly, they definitely need a plug wart. On
>the other hand, the low power consumption is ideal when they meet your
>needs.
>
>Then Lionel wrote:
>
>> Intel Little Valley D201GLY2A [0] might be a good choice - it runs about $70,
>
>So my question is, how's the support for using it in a headless
>configuration? The thing I liked about Intel's ISP 1x00/2x00 servers was
>that they supported serial consoles in the BIOS. Maybe not perfectly,
>but well enough to avoid those obnoxious "remote access" kludges.

No serial console support on the Intel board, but is has serial port so your OS can have a serial port (small consolation I know, but it is something ;^)

Lionel
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[Joshua Boyd]

On May 3, 2008, at 11:15 PM, Jeff Cole wrote:

> Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>> What I really, really want is not serial BIOS where video is  
>> converted... I want a real serial BIOS, designed to be serial from  
>> the start.
>
> I recently obtained 1U box with a Tyan S5112 motherboard in it. It  
> looks like it may support serial BIOS. One of the BIOS options is  
> console re-direction.
>
> I haven't really had a chance to check it out yet, but, plan to do  
> so in the next week or so.

My experience with Intel chipsets with a BIOS doing console re-
direction is that it is fairly lame.  It trie