3 ms·

AIX? You'll spend an hour or so to set up the network so it'd even boot. For the youth: The AIX machine I remember did not even boot without a proper network.

AIX? You'll spend an hour or so to set up the network so it'd even boot. For the youth: The AIX machine I remember did not even boot without a proper network. They featured obscure key combos, a tiny LCD screen and even more obscure beep codes to let you configure the network parameters. Only then they would boot into a proper OS.

electroly 3y ago
Back in the day, we had AIX running on RS/6000 and it was never connected to any kind of network. Didn't even have networking hardware. It served serial terminals. I'm certain that AIX did not, in general, require a network to boot, but rather your system was configured that way.
- em-bee 3y ago
  i must have been lucky, because my AIX box was working fine on ethernet. the most "fun" i had was once when it didn't boot, i had to mess with ed to fix some configuration (that i must have messed up myself before) to get it to run again. vi experience came in handy.
- weinzierl 3y ago
  I believe ours were also RS/6000's but I'm not sure because it was a long time ago. Those were rented machines with an expensive per-hour service contract. My company didn't want to pay for the setup so we did it ourselves. Totally possible the machines were misconfigured deliberately to make us pay for the setup service or maybe they were just in the state the previous customer had let them and that didn't fit our network. Anyways my point was more that with this old tech you'll probably spend a lot of time on boring details before you'll even get to the fun part, like running DB2.
Gordonjcp 3y ago
Car analogy time: A mate of mine has an absolutely beautiful old Austin 12 which turns 100 years old this summer. It actually drives surprisingly like a modern car, modulo things like no syncromesh so you have to double-declutch - it doesn't have the "funny" pedal layout of a Ford Model T, for example - and its 1800cc engine still produces most of its 27bhp taking it to a top speed absolutely flat out downhill and homesick of about 50mph, not that you'd want to with its cable-operated brakes. Most of the mechanicals would be familiar to anyone who'd worked on any sort of car. You could take that 100-year-old car and daily it, around town. It is a joy to drive, and everyone wants a good look at it. It's clearly a thing of beauty made in a way that nothing will ever be made again. However! Pretty much every time you go to drive it you need to fiddle with the carburettor, or do something to the magneto, or take the spark plugs out and give them a clean, or prime something, or oil something, or generally fettle some part. You've got to set the throttle, the choke, and the magneto timing *juuuuust* right before you swing the starting handle or it'll break your wrist. The cooling system either overheats or doesn't heat up enough and the only way to tell is it doesn't run properly and sometimes steam comes out - for both conditions. I love driving it. I also love old OSes like AIX and SunOS. I've even run 2.11BSD on a real PDP11! Here's the thing, though. I have Linux on my desktop, and a 25-year-old Range Rover parked outside. They're both a bit old-fashioned with some clunky bits of styling that you wouldn't have these days. They're a bit crude mechanically (it has a 1960s V8 boat engine under the bonnet!? It has a *monolithic* kernel under the bonnet?!) but they both start on the button, run all day without having to get out and fiddle, and they're comfortable to sit at for long period and actually *get shit done*. No-one stops to turn and gawp as you go past though.
wenc 3y ago
Funny you should say that. I used to collect old machines (owned a SPARCstation, Mac SE, etc.) and at one point I inherited an IBM RS/6000 with no user manual. I was AIX-curious but I never figured out how to get it to boot. (I didn't connect it to Ethernet) (this was in the early 2000s when the Internet was still nascent, and I didn't have any IBM experts in my circle)
sys_64738 3y ago
I don't recall any problems booting without a network. You used SMIT to configure the networking as opposed to direct networking commands.

electroly 3y ago

Back in the day, we had AIX running on RS/6000 and it was never connected to any kind of network. Didn't even have networking hardware. It served serial terminals. I'm certain that AIX did not, in general, require a network to boot, but rather your system was configured that way.

em-bee 3y ago
i must have been lucky, because my AIX box was working fine on ethernet. the most "fun" i had was once when it didn't boot, i had to mess with ed to fix some configuration (that i must have messed up myself before) to get it to run again. vi experience came in handy.
weinzierl 3y ago
I believe ours were also RS/6000's but I'm not sure because it was a long time ago. Those were rented machines with an expensive per-hour service contract. My company didn't want to pay for the setup so we did it ourselves. Totally possible the machines were misconfigured deliberately to make us pay for the setup service or maybe they were just in the state the previous customer had let them and that didn't fit our network. Anyways my point was more that with this old tech you'll probably spend a lot of time on boring details before you'll even get to the fun part, like running DB2.

Gordonjcp 3y ago

Car analogy time: A mate of mine has an absolutely beautiful old Austin 12 which turns 100 years old this summer. It actually drives surprisingly like a modern car, modulo things like no syncromesh so you have to double-declutch - it doesn't have the "funny" pedal layout of a Ford Model T, for example - and its 1800cc engine still produces most of its 27bhp taking it to a top speed absolutely flat out downhill and homesick of about 50mph, not that you'd want to with its cable-operated brakes. Most of the mechanicals would be familiar to anyone who'd worked on any sort of car. You could take that 100-year-old car and daily it, around town. It is a joy to drive, and everyone wants a good look at it. It's clearly a thing of beauty made in a way that nothing will ever be made again. However! Pretty much every time you go to drive it you need to fiddle with the carburettor, or do something to the magneto, or take the spark plugs out and give them a clean, or prime something, or oil something, or generally fettle some part. You've got to set the throttle, the choke, and the magneto timing *juuuuust* right before you swing the starting handle or it'll break your wrist. The cooling system either overheats or doesn't heat up enough and the only way to tell is it doesn't run properly and sometimes steam comes out - for both conditions. I love driving it. I also love old OSes like AIX and SunOS. I've even run 2.11BSD on a real PDP11! Here's the thing, though. I have Linux on my desktop, and a 25-year-old Range Rover parked outside. They're both a bit old-fashioned with some clunky bits of styling that you wouldn't have these days. They're a bit crude mechanically (it has a 1960s V8 boat engine under the bonnet!? It has a *monolithic* kernel under the bonnet?!) but they both start on the button, run all day without having to get out and fiddle, and they're comfortable to sit at for long period and actually *get shit done*. No-one stops to turn and gawp as you go past though.

wenc 3y ago

Funny you should say that. I used to collect old machines (owned a SPARCstation, Mac SE, etc.) and at one point I inherited an IBM RS/6000 with no user manual. I was AIX-curious but I never figured out how to get it to boot. (I didn't connect it to Ethernet) (this was in the early 2000s when the Internet was still nascent, and I didn't have any IBM experts in my circle)

sys_64738 3y ago

I don't recall any problems booting without a network. You used SMIT to configure the networking as opposed to direct networking commands.