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First new VAX in 30 years? (2021)
- dcminter 3y agoThe additional two posts he promises are: https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/2021/07/03/msg003900.html https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/2021/07/03/msg003900.... https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/2021/07/03/msg003903.html https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-vax/2021/07/03/msg003903....
- Accujack 3y agoFor those not noticing, all the posts were made in 2021. I'm regretting I didn't get more done during the pandemic, but then I was a "critical" worker and I didn't get to stay home.
- Semaphor 3y agoLast time in July 2021, 89 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27758962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27758962
- jmclnx 3y agoNetBSD is one of those projects I wish got more resources (donations). They have some cool things going on (ex: rump, exotic hw) that no one else has, but lacks the resources to fully exploit them :(
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- hliyan 3y agoI don't know much about the subject matter, but the minimalist website is so refreshing. The content is front and center, unvarnished and not occluded by various UI bells and whistles. I miss this version of the web. Navigating between pages actually seem to work as fast (if not faster) than many "modern" single page / progressive web apps.
- renonce 3y agoEverybody using HN probably already loves a minimalist website.
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- taravangian 3y agoWhile I do love minimalist websites, I love minimalist responsive websites and this isn't responsive at all.
- xelia 3y agoUnfortunately the text is too small for me to comfortably read, and the website is incompatible with Safari’s Reader Mode.
- rbanffy 3y agoIt's also the only VAX in history with a built-in joystick!
- dcminter 3y agoI didn't see a reference to a joystick anywhere and there's none shown in the photo...? Furthermore :) this spring I visited a PDP 11/73 running Spacewar with a joystick attached. Presumably that would have been attached as a QBus peripheral, and Vaxen could support QBus, so I'd actually be pretty surprised if there hadn't been a Vax with a built-in joystick. Depending how you define "built-in" that is. Edit: Come to think of it I'd be very surprised if there weren't any flight simulators running off Vaxen and that would definitely involve a very much built-in joystick (along with the rest of the flight deck). I know a lot of those used PDP-11 so it would be the same lineage.
- GrumpySloth 3y agoThere is one joystick in the photo. It’s even labeled "JOYSTICK". :)
- jart 3y agoOnly the NetBSD community could have come up with a project this cool!
- atorodius 3y agoNot about a vaccine, FYI.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoAlso not about DEC hardware. sigh
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoIf it's about a new VAX, in 2021, one should not expecte that it was DEC hardware.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoI believe HPE still owns the name and trademarks.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoDo they still sell parts? Do they still produce parts? Do they still sell new systems?
- therealcamino 3y agoNobody's sold new VAX systems since the 90s. VMS was ported first to the DEC Alpha architecture, then to Itanium, so even for VMS, VAX is two architectures ago. And Itanium itself is at the end of the road now, but I think still supported for the moment.
- fredoralive 3y agoA couple of years ago HPE sold VMS to VMS Software Inc, who have ported it to x86-64. So it’s three architectures ago. The VAX version apparently wasn’t included in the deal (to the chagrin of hobbyists, as they can’t get a legally licensed version of VAX VMS anymore), which perhaps shows how relevant it is to modern VMS customers.
- irdc 3y agoI’d be interested in seeing the Verilog code but he sadly seems to never have shared it.
- djmips 3y agoGuess we'll have to do it ourselves. First VAX in 3 years!
- analognoise 3y agoCan I join in? “hey let’s build a microcoded processor” is like my own personal Bat signal. We starting from something like the AM2900 (Mick and Brick’s book)? Need to get familiar with the VAX instruction set and get that stress test program too. We could hook it up to Verilator and expose the whole thing to SDL to get graphical output so the same code that runs the “simulator” runs the actual hardware? …I’m down?
- 082349872349872 3y agoJust make sure that POLY makes good use of greater-than-register-precision FMAC; that'll show those smug RISC weenies!
- rockinghigh 3y agoFor context: VAX (an acronym for Virtual Address eXtension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y agoAnd nothing sucks like a Vax(TM)
- inkyoto 3y agoThere is a UK company that makes vacuum cleaners under the brand of Vax. They suck well, indeed, although they do not last due to the atrocious build quality – I had one years ago (granted, I had to pay homage and buy a Vax vacuum cleaner), and it fell apart 2 years later.
- rhelz 3y agoI had to chuckle when the OP said "and 151 instructions." The VAX was the poster-child of CISC. Thats like, what, 20% of the instructions ARM has for SIMD alone? Recently, I had to learn C++17 through 20. At the same time I was learning x86 assembly, and x86 assembly was far, far easier. Downright simple and straightforward in comparison. Aren't high-level languages supposed to make our lives easier? Isn't RISC supposed to make CPU's simpler? What happened to our world?
- quietbritishjim 3y agoMore powerful tools are often more complex to learn. A car has more controls than a push bike, and an aeroplane has more still. I'm not saying all the complexity in C++ is justified (!!!) but it's not too much of a surprise that it's more complex to learn than assembler.
- dark-star 3y agoIf you use C++ like an assembler, then it's not complicated. You only use functions, loops, arrays and structs. And GOTOs. Congratulations you now have replicated what an assembler can do, but it has become much easier (you don't have to remember details of the architecture, memory layout, etc.) But C++ puts a lot of syntactical sugar (abstractions) on top that, if you learn and understand them, can help you write even more concise and expressive code. This is where complexity comes in. Higher abstraction brings complexity. Whether that is good or bad depends on your knowledge of the language/concepts.
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- joshu 3y agohow many addressing modes are there? in my mind, CISC vs RISC is more about the vast array of addressing modes on CISC vs load/store on RISC, rather than the actual size of the ISA probably worth comparing to early MIPS or SPARC instead of modern ARM with extensions?
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- userbinator 3y agoVAX is certainly the CISCiest of them all --- looking at the opcode map makes x86 seem like a RISC in comparison, as there's very little structure in it beyond the (copious amounts of) addressing modes.
- AlbertCory 3y agoThere's a guy up in the Seattle area who has a bunch of vaxen (*) in his basement. I asked him how many there were, and he wasn't sure. They were all the size of washing machines. * And two working Altos, which is why I was there.
- witrak 3y ago>They were all the size of washing machines. More like a cube - all dimensions equal. And it was because they should fit into an American submarine hatch. After all, they were used there...
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