← Back to context

Comment by mlmonkey

7 hours ago

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

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.

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.

  • 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".

    • 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

      1 reply →

  • 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.