4 ms·
Looking at [1], it would seem they actually need a bootable drive. Knowing what's on the drive... well, that's another story. Interestingly enough, the Alto co
by gattilorenz 10y ago
Looking at [1], it would seem they actually need a bootable drive. Knowing what's on the drive... well, that's another story.
Interestingly enough, the Alto could also boot from the network [2], but I guess it would just be easier to take a bootable drive and copy it to the drive. Even creating a whole disk emulator would probably be easier than netbooting an Alto these days. Bootable disk images do exist, as you can use them with the Salto emulator.
[1] http://www.righto.com/2016/06/restoring-y-combinators-xerox-alto-day.html http://www.righto.com/2016/06/restoring-y-combinators-xerox-...
[2] http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Personal/Alto.html http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Personal/Alto.htm...
- fit2rule 10y agoThanks for the info - very informative. Seems to me that they might be better off doing a netboot at first, since this is the booting technique that requires fewer moving parts and less wear and tear on the disk drive .. but I wonder if they did netboot, would they have everything onboard that they need in order to format/configure the disk drive for disk booting, next? So many questions .. I guess I should spend some hours with the Salto simulator, which seems like a guaranteed enjoyable waste of time! :)
- gattilorenz 10y agoThe problem is, what do you netboot from? Netbooting a modern computer from another modern computer is somewhat easy, but with old computers it can be a nightmare. I tried to boot OS9 on a G3 iMac from a 2012 Intel MacBook, and despite days of work I couldn't do it.
- fit2rule 10y agoWouldn't it be that the Alto uses normally available standard netboot protocols that could be set up easily with a Linux box somewhere?
- digi_owl 10y agoGiven that we are talking about a computer from 1973, the chance that there is anything "standard" about the network boot is minimal... Edit: well damn, a quick search bulled up a lovely PDF from textfiles.com. http://textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/alto/AltoBootProto.pdf http://textfiles.com/bitsavers/pdf/xerox/alto/AltoBootProto....
- gattilorenz 10y agoCool! It seems most internet gateways contain a boot server, problem solved ;) Seriously though, I would bet that, with enough knowledge & time, you might find everything you need to netboot an Alto here: http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/ http://xeroxalto.computerhistory.org/ /Ibis/AltoGateway/Servers/BootServer* looks promising
- digi_owl 10y agoYeah, still need to set up another computer on a ethernet (likely the good old thick coax kind with 75 ohm terminators) network that behave properly according to the pdf. Fun times... BTW, if anyone wonders what pup stands for in that pdf: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_Universal_Packet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_Universal_Packet
- kens 10y agoThe main problem with booting the Alto off Ethernet is that it uses 3 Mb/s Ethernet, which is incompatible with "modern" Ethernet hardware. We can't just plug an Ethernet cable into the back of the Alto. Back then, Ethernet used a "vampire tap" that clamped onto a coaxial cable with spikes that pierced the cable to make the connection. And you could only make connections at special spots on the cable (marked with black stripes) in order to avoid signal reflections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_tap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_tap The Living Computer Museum in Seattle is building a 3 Mb Ethernet gateway, which potentially would allow network booting.