On The Metal

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Tom Lyon Dec 23, 2019

Show notes

You can find Tom on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aka_pugs and find his blog at https://akapugs.blog/. You can learn more about DriveScale at https://drivescale.com/.

Tom brought us a present: an IBM 360-era "Ready" button!

Some of the highlights of the show include:

Williams tube (CRT-based memory): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube
Mercury delay lines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory
Datapoint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint
Datapoint: The Lost Story of the Texans who Invented the Personal Computer Revolution by Lamont Wood: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16214216-datapoint
ARCNET: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARCNET
AppleTalk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleTalk
Z8530 UART: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog_SCC
Apple LaserWriter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserWriter
DECnet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECnet
X.25: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.25
Tom's notes from the NFS offsite in 1983: https://twitter.com/aka_pugs/status/985941297327366144
Automounter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automounter
CAP theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem
Sun's Network Disk (nd) protocol: https://github.com/senjan/ndd/blob/master/nd_pkt.h (if you find nd(4P) from the SunOS 3.x man pages, let us know!)
The Internet Collapse of 1986: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_congestion#Congestive_collapse
Larry Roberts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Roberts_(scientist)
Telenet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telenet
Tandem Computers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_Computers
Token ring: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_ring
Ipsilon Networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipsilon_Networks
FDDI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_Distributed_Data_Interface
Crescendo Communications: https://books.google.com/books?id=PDsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44
CDC 3400: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_3000_series
Ones' Complement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ones%27_complement
IBM 1130: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1130
Olivetti Programma 101: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programma_101
TI-83: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-83_series
HP 48G: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_48_series
HP-35: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-35
ed(1): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_(text_editor)
IBM System/370: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/370
APL\360: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)#APL%5C360
IBM 2741 with APL keyboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2741#/media/File:IBM2741.JPG
VM/370: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system)
Unibus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unibus
Interdata: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata
Greg Chesson: https://grainger.illinois.edu/alumni/distinguished/7939
Joe Ossanna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Ossanna
nroff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nroff
IBM 1403: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1403
Amdahl UTS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl_UTS
IBM 3270 terminal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270
Dick Lyon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_F._Lyon
MAXC, PARC's PDP-10 clone: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/parts/maxc-board/index.html
Berkeley Computer Corporation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Genie
Bob Lyon: https://www.facebook.com/bob.lyon.98
Optical mouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_mouse
The Oxide garage Sun art work of mysterious origin (a Sun-3/160, perhaps?): https://oxide.computer/img/garage-sun.jpg
Steve Kirsch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Kirsch
Dick Lyon's (color!) technical report on the optical mouse: http://www.dicklyon.com/tech/OMouse/OpticalMouse-Lyon.pdf
Ipsilon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipsilon_Networks
ATM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asynchronous_transfer_mode
Andy Bechtolsheim on "Death to ATM" (July 1996): https://web.archive.org/web/20001217105700/https://www.redherring.com/mag/issue33/atm.html
Tom's original announcement of VFIO: https://lwn.net/Articles/391459/
Open Source Firmware Conference: htt...

Ron Minnich Dec 16, 2019

Show notes

Some of the highlights of the show include:

Netboot - Sun Microsystems: https://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/netboot/intro.sun.html https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sparc/Netboot/de
PCI - self defining hardware: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/pci_ssc_quick_guide.pdf
Dip switches and jumpers: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/pc-hardware-in/059600513X/ch02s03s05.html
VA Linux cluster: https://itsfoss.com/story-of-va-linux/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet
Intel L440 motherboard: https://www.ebay.com/c/1079625591
Autoexec.bat: https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/autoexec.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUTOEXEC.BAT
LinuxBIOS: https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4888 https://doc.coreboot.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot
DRAM training code (DDR): https://blog.asset-intertech.com/test_data_out/2014/11/memory-training-testing-and-margining.html https://github.com/librecore-org/librecore/wiki/Understanding-DDR-Memory-Training
Eric Biederman: https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4888 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_namespaces
Open Source Firmware Conference: https://osfc.io
Buildroot: https://buildroot.org/
Source code for cat: https://twobithistory.org/2018/11/12/cat.html https://github.com/coreutils/coreutils/blob/master/src/cat.c
whereis command: https://linux.die.net/man/1/whereis
Gentoo: https://www.gentoo.org/
ChromeOS project & source code: https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os https://opensource.google/projects/chromium-os https://chromium.googlesource.com/
Gentoo USE flags: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/USE_flag
Gentoo compiling GCC meme: https://twitter.com/mrtazz/status/674319383951446016
Rust LLVM: https://rust-lang.github.io/rustc-guide/codegen/updating-llvm.html https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/tree/master/src/rustllvm
Ken Thompson’s C compiler in plan9: http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/new_c_compilers/
Reflections on Trusting Trust paper: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf
1145 computer
Relay computers: http://relaysbc.sourceforge.net/history.html
HP 2100: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_2100 https://www.hpmuseum.net/exhibit.php?class=3&cat=31
SR33 paper tape punch in reader: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33
Dr. Nim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Nim
Think-a-Dot: https://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/thinkadot.htm
E.S.R Inc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.S.R.,_Inc.
Digi-Comp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digi-Comp_II
Turning Tumble (modern day Dr. Nim): https://www.turingtumble.com/
ILLIAC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILLIAC
Geniac: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geniac
Edmund Berkeley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Berkeley
Artist in France made a digital clock where the flip flops are LEDs
Quantum Supremacy: https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/10/quantum-supremacy-using-programmable.html
Stored-program computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored-program_computer
ACPI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface
Plan9: https://9p.io/plan9/ http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs
Microservices revolution: https://www.infoq.com/articles/microservices-revolution/
Unix synthetic filesystem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_file_system http://9p.cat-v.org/ http://man.cat-v.org/unix_8th/4/proc
/dev/tcp
Rob Pike talk on how to go wrong with naming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kj5ApnhPAE
Los Alamos Q cluster: https://www.networkworld.com/article/2338572/los-alamos-builds-largest-infiniband-cluster.html
VPROC: https://books.google.com/books?id=sr71_M6r3cAC&pg=PA567&lpg=PA567&dq=Vproc&source=bl&ots=Od936MFpvu&sig=ACfU3U3XSlMkeII4fMtpN3QOCRaOkSZJzw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjI3d_ZpLnmAhWVoJ4KHQTRD0cQ6AEwCXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Vproc&f=false
InfiniBand: https://en...

Amir Michael Dec 06, 2019

Show notes

You can find Amir on Facebook at https://facebook.com/amir and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/digiamir.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

Silcon wafers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer_(electronics)
The "Turbo button": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button
BBSs: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/11/the-lost-civilization-of-dial-up-bulletin-board-systems/506465/
Turbo Pascal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_Pascal
Anders Hejlsberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Hejlsberg
UCSB's Basic Undergraduate RISC Processor (BURP): https://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~strukov/ece152BSpring2012/Labs/Lab2.pdf
Thermal grease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_grease
"The Datacenter as Computer: Designing Warehouse-Scale Machines" https://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/pdf/10.2200/S00874ED3V01Y201809CAC046
Sun Modular Data Center, née Project Blackbox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Modular_Datacenter
Google Modular Data Center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Modular_Data_Center
SPD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_presence_detect
DRAM training: https://www.systemverilog.io/ddr4-initialization-and-calibration
Origins of 19" rack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19-inch_rack#Overview_and_history
Open Compute Project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Compute_Project
Facebook Wedge switch: https://engineering.fb.com/data-center-engineering/facebook-open-switching-system-fboss-and-wedge-in-the-open/
Backblaze drive reports: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2019/
Busbar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busbar

Jeff Rothschild Dec 02, 2019

Show notes

Some of the highlights of the show include:

Dis-assembling MS-DOS on an IBM PC: https://github.com/microsoft/ms-dos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
PC Interface: allowing a MS-DOS program to use a unix host as its remote filesystem
AT&T 3B2 Machine: http://www.unixwiz.net/3b2.html http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/westernElectric/3b20s/234-301-910WE_3B20S_System_Index_and_Description_Jul81.pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3B_series_computers
32-bit Sigma 7 Machine: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sds/sigma/sigma7/900950J_Sigma7_RefMan_Oct73.pdf https://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/profess/SDSigma7.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDS_Sigma_series
Teletype 110: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Corporation
PDP-10: http://www.bitsavers.org/www.computer.museum.uq.edu.au/pdf/DEC-10-HMAA-D%20PDP-10%20KA10%20Central%20Processor%20Maintenance%20Manual%20Volume%2

Teaser Nov 15, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to our new podcast, On the Metal! As a part of starting Oxide Computer Company, we decided to also create the podcast we always wanted. It’s unapologetically technical and as Jess says, “the nerdiest podcast on the face of the planet.” Join us as we interview various guests from the hardware / software interface. Their stories have captivated us all and kept us wanting more, we can’t wait to share them with you! Stay tuned!

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