[ale] old HP9000 running Linux

[James P. Kinney III]

On Tue, 2004-06-22 at 18:35, Geoffrey wrote:

> 
> So you're saying I can't run Linux of any variation on it?
> 
> You're looking at the half empty glass, it'll save on heating in the 
> winter. :)

I've been tinkering with PaLinux for about 3 years. As far as I
remember, the T-class systems were on the "never to be supported" along
with the K-class and a few others. The workstations, D-class and N-class
are mostly working. They even have their eyes on Linux on a superdome
system (!!!!!).

As for the heating bill, you could add some ductwork to draw in fresh
outside air, filter it, run it through the beast as a pre-heater for a
heat exchanger! It will churn out about the equivalent of a small,
electric, oil-filled radiator; 1600W or so. Plus it's noisy.

A side funny story: Many years ago some friends got their hands on a
_very_ old computer system (type unknown due to age. Mine, not the
system. Memory fault. Non-ECC ram installed) that had LOADS of tubes in
it. It was about the same size as the dead furnace in their house. Being
geeks, they put the tubed monster in the old furnace hole, put a box fan
on the top, wired the whole mess up to the thermostat. So when the
thermostat signaled to turn on, the relay would trip to power on the fan
and the computer would begin to calculate pi. As the house was rather
small (~1000 ft^2) and the system was very slow, over the course of that
winter, they only managed to get around the first 400 digits of pi. When
it got warm enough to completely power it down, they got a new furnace
as the initial programing was too much effort.
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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