On Wed, Mar 24, 1999 at 02:33:52PM +1100, Simon Burge wrote:
> Toru Nishimura wrote:
> 
> > Hi, all.
> > 
> > I updated 'distrib/notes/pmax/hardware' file.  I made several
> > typographical and tracemark justifications leaving its contents almost
> > untouched.  Here is my thought;
> 
> Thank you
> 
> > - Following statements are relevant enough, or need updated (in
> > figure-wise)? 
> > 
> > > The minimal configuration requires 8M of RAM and ~60M of disk space.
> > > To install the entire system requires much more disk space, and to run
> > > X or compile the system, more RAM is recommended.  (NetBSD with 8M of
> > > RAM feels like ULTRIX with 8M of RAM.)  Note that until you have
> > > around 16M of RAM, getting more RAM is more important than getting a
> > > faster CPU.
> 
> The new bootblocks (almost commited) load at 7MB into RAM, as do Ultrix
> bootblocks.  It's conceivable that everything prior to now _might_ run
> in 4 or 6MB...
> 
> "zcat NetBSD-1.3.3/base.tgz" is approx. 37MB, the last snapshot was
> 45MB.  Add a couple of the kernel and then 10% and we're looking at
> about 60MB with almost 0 space free.  Maybe 80MB might be a more
> realisitic figure.  FWIW, I use a 100MB RZ23 for basic testing of
> release stuff (including 32MB of swap).

The minimum supported configuration for RISC Ultrix >= 3.1 was a 2100
with a RZ24 disk.  Customers who'd been shipped systems with RZ23 disks
were shipped RZ24's as make-goods as soon as they discovered that they 
could not install Ultrix with all the required sets on the RZ23 -- you
could install less than all of the "required" sets, but it took detailed
knowledge of the Ultrix package tools which was rare outside DEC and, in
my experience, even _inside_ DEC, so swapping out the customers' RZ23's
for RZ24's must have appeared to be the only viable solution.

If you were an "important" customer, you got to keep the RZ23, too. :-)
My school didn't, but that same summer when I worked in the local DEC sales
office doing second-line support, we did precisely that deal for Electric
Boat -- big defense contractors were, shall we say, "important" customers,
as you might expect.

My home system somehow managed to keep its RZ23, too, but I think that was
a "mistake" on the part of the Field Service engineer who did the swap-out,
who worked down the hall and who I played frisbee with most days after 
work. :-)

So, basically, if you have a pmax with only a RZ23, someone's stolen your
other disk, you didn't complain loud enough when you bought the machine,
or you have a _very_ early system.  The former is probably the most likely.

Supporting <200MB systems would consequently seem not tremendously important.

Thor