Jacob H. Suter <jsuter@intrastar.net> wrote:
> fascist system administration is a sign of a shitty system
> administrator, usually scared out of his wits.
   
   This is indeed a good description of INS.
   
> Its all in the expense and hassle of operation.  Vaxes are old, at least
> any that you or I can reasonably afford of any speed.  They'll probably
> run until the next ice age, but they cost a fortune to operate (just my
> VS3100 eats a huge amount of power, at least 1.5A@120V) [...]
   
   Old VAXen are not as fast as new Pentiums and SPARCs, but a farm of the
former can match one of the latter. The cost of power is not a
consideration for me, since it's not my money, nor that of our department.
It's the University's general budget from which everyone happily sucks. I
also don't considered running a VAX "cluster" a hassle, on the opposite, I
enjoy it greatly.
   
> [...] the
> availability of spare parts can be sparse and may take days/weeks to
> find.
   
   This is true unfortunately. If something breaks on my system, I'll have
a beg my sponsors for some $$$ to replace it. My hope is that by that time
I'll have too many users for them to refuse. There is also an issue as to
whether it's better to buy a replacement for a broken VAX part or to move
to "new" crap. Here my hope is that I'll have too many machines for the
latter approach to be affordable (of course a downgrade is never an
option).
   
> You can like playing with old hardware or possibly even like old
> arpanet, but I would think most people actually like what the internet
> has come to technically, but not the people (lusers) that have taken it
> over.
   
   Well, I agree in a sense. However, having the net restricted to ARPA and
major campuses would help keep those losers out.
   
   Sincerely,
   Michael Sokolov
   Phone: 440-449-0299
   ARPA Internet SMTP mail: sokolov@alpha.ces.cwru.edu