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mlmonkey 6 hours ago

Why is the domain `pdp1173.com` when the machine is a PDP 11/83 ?

davepl 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Because it started as a 15Mhz 11/73 but I later upgraded it to an 18MHz 11/83 CPU. And now it's a Mentec M1, but it's still an "83 class" machine. That's my thinking, anyway.

ktm5j 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There's a couple eyebrow raising things about this post.. like the fact that there's nothing but vague details in text and one photo with an AI prompt like alt-text. I think they're just trying to get clicks for that banner ad.

roryirvine 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Sadly, the site does seem AI-flavoured to a rather off-putting extent.

And, as you say, the details are so vague - it's exactly what you might expect if an LLM wrote them based on reading a spec sheet rather than any practical experience.

In particular, connecting that DEQNA to a modern network must have been a huge challenge all in itself and I'd have expected there to be a series of blog posts about just that. Maybe it's legit (and I'd love more detail if it is), but right now the presentation screams "thinly disguised ad".

spijdar 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think he has actually posted videos of the restoration before (they've popped up in my youtube feed in the past), but I've never watched them, so dunno. The LLM site design and advertisement front-and-center are certainly a... choice....

But, more importantly, why do you reckon DEQNA would be hard to connect to a modern network? NetBSD still supports it when running on a q-bus VAX: https://github.com/NetBSD/src/blob/trunk/sys/dev/qbus/if_qe....

It has some pretty broken behavior regarding multicast/broadcast traffic IIRC, but nothing putting it behind a vlan or separate LAN altogether wouldn't solve. I've got a little lsi-11 system under my bed I'm hoping to, one day, get the Fuzzball [0] distribution running on. The 22-bit address extension wirewrap the previous owner did needs to be redone entirely, so it's been a "later" project for years now, but I am hoping my little DEQNA will be able to ping the Internet still.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzball_router

roryirvine 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I was assuming that something of that vintage would only have been able to handle a 10BASE5 transceiver, but a wee bit of googling suggests that an UTP transceiver works well enough.

Needs a patched ROM and recompiled kernel, though! See http://www.cosam.org/computers/dec/pdp11-23/20080402.html (and the two subsequent installments)

(That cosam.org site is more what I'd be expecting for a project like this, but maybe I'm just too old and grumpy for my own good!)

dboreham 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Dave posts frequently about his work, some on YouTube and some on Facebook. You have to be in the right groups on FB.

ktm5j an hour ago | parent [-]

You and several other people here are making unsubstantiated claims about how you're super sure this is real in a way that makes it seem less real. You guys seem to know this Dave character and are doing him a solid, right?

dcminter an hour ago | parent [-]

Dave Plummer's a well known YouTuber. He pops up in a couple of DEC groups that I'm in on Facebook. However I'm not a fan. He seems to take a lot and contribute only self-promotional videos.

The photo on this page looks very AI heavy. I'm not an expert but I really don't think those light panels are real (if they're real they're not contemporary to the machines they're in).

(Edit: I should qualify that I don't mean the panel with the octet switches, that looks roughly right - I mean the one under the 8" disks and the one on the vaguely Vax-pedestal looking thing)

cube00 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

While probably it's legit because I've seen Dave discussing the process on the YT channel (which I no longer watch) he unfortunately does have form https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39813625

Having TMOG on a .org when it sells commercial licences doesn't sit well with me given the history.

davepl 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

FWIW, .com was taken so I registered .org, and it's only used for the free version. The PRO version lives at tmog.store, which should be pretty plain.

roryirvine 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Oh, yeah - this popped up on HN yesterday too and also met with scepticism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49772362

Oh well, so this PDP restoration probably isn't real. Disappointing.

davepl 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

"Probably isn't real". Interesting theory.

dboreham 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What's not real about it?

ktm5j 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm a little confused by your comment.. especially considering the fact that you edited it and changed the link from and old comment thread from 2024 to whatever this dead post is from 2012. What does having form mean? Who is Dave?

cube00 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Sorry, lost the last digit, fixed now. This restored PDP-11/83 project is Dave Plummer's