Re: [9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?

Re: [9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?

[presotto]

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That's unfair and not even true.

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From: Laura Creighton <lac@cd.chalmers.se>
To: sjking@bconnex.net
Cc: lac@cd.chalmers.se, 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 16:51:06 +0200 (MET DST)
Message-ID: <200106111451.QAA17134@boris.cd.chalmers.se>

The largest problem we have in popularising Plan 9 is finding old
enough hardware to run it on because it will not run on any of the
new stuff.  The reason that we have this problem is because the
people in 1127 are so completely satisfied with their ability to
do major amounts of real work with the anceint hardware they have
got that they couldn't be bothered to go to the computer hardware
store and buy something made in the past decade, _even though they
are aware that people who want to run plan 9 cannot now because
they can't find old enough hardware_.  (Also because people like me
haven't made a VM ware port yet because we are too damn busy with
the rest of our lives, as usual.)  I'd say _speed_ is not going to
be a problem for you.

While I am here.  Thank you ever so much for so many hours of enjoyment.

Laura

Re: [9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?

[Dan Cross]

In article <20010611145718.C301D199F6@mail.cse.psu.edu> you write:
>That's unfair and not even true.

I agree that it's untrue; I've used Plan 9 on some pretty serious and
pretty modern hardware.  However, I *do* think that it's fair to say
that there's a certain lack of device drivers which in a sense is
fairly limiting, if for no other reason than unsupported hardware is,
often so much more prevalent than supported.  SCSI controllers are a
good example; the lack of an Adaptec AIC7xxx driver is frustrating,
particularly since those show up on a lot of motherboards.  Similarly,
video hardware support can be frustrating (though I think the recent
addition of an nVidia driver has helped tremendously).

I suppose the solution is for people (not necessarily 1127) to write
more device drivers.  :-)

	- Dan C.

[9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.

[Sam Ducksworth]

nemo and/or presotto,

what wireless lan card(s) and base station(s) did you
use with your bitsy setup? I searched the archives and
there was a mention of the Lucent Wavelan card, which i
think is now called the "ORiNOCO IEEE Wireless World
PC Card".

--sam

Re: [9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.

[Dan Cross]

In article <Pine.BSF.4.33.0106110945440.67201-100000@lucifer.ducksworth.com> you write:
>nemo and/or presotto,
>
>what wireless lan card(s) and base station(s) did you
>use with your bitsy setup? I searched the archives and
>there was a mention of the Lucent Wavelan card, which i
>think is now called the "ORiNOCO IEEE Wireless World
>PC Card".

I used the ORiNOCO card in mine (even though the card still says
Lucent Wavelan on it).  It's the only supported wireless LAN card
that I know of.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.

[Sam Ducksworth]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Dan Cross wrote:

> I used the ORiNOCO card in mine (even though the card still says
> Lucent Wavelan on it).  It's the only supported wireless LAN card
> that I know of

what are you using for your gateway? (i.e. ORiNOCO Residential
Gateway RG1000 )

>
> 	- Dan C.
>
>

--sam

Re: [9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.

[David P. Boswell]

I am using a D-Link DWL-1000AP.  $250 at the local store.  Any 802.11B
access point should work fine.

From: Sam Ducksworth <sam@ducksworth.com>
Subject: Re: [9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 13:56:04 -0700 (PDT)

> On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Dan Cross wrote:
> 
> > I used the ORiNOCO card in mine (even though the card still says
> > Lucent Wavelan on it).  It's the only supported wireless LAN card
> > that I know of
> 
> what are you using for your gateway? (i.e. ORiNOCO Residential
> Gateway RG1000 )
> 
> >
> > 	- Dan C.
> >
> >
> 
> --sam
> 

Re: [9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.

[Dan Cross]

In article <Pine.BSF.4.33.0106111351100.67885-100000@lucifer.ducksworth.com> you write:
>> I used the ORiNOCO card in mine (even though the card still says
>> Lucent Wavelan on it).  It's the only supported wireless LAN card
>> that I know of
>
>what are you using for your gateway? (i.e. ORiNOCO Residential
>Gateway RG1000 )

We're using the ORiNOCO access point with 2 card slots; I'm not
sure of the exact model number but our systems guys tell me that
there's only one with 2 slots, and when I looked at it a few
minutes ago it said, ``WaveACCESS Central Office Router'' on it.

	- Dan C.

Re: [9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.

[Dan Cross]

In article <200106121444.KAA04473@augusta.math.psu.edu> you write:
>We're using the ORiNOCO access point with 2 card slots; I'm not
>sure of the exact model number but our systems guys tell me that
>there's only one with 2 slots, and when I looked at it a few
>minutes ago it said, ``WaveACCESS Central Office Router'' on it.

Ahh, Paul Lustgarten tells me in private mail that the ORiNOCO
AP1000 LAN gateway matches the description I gave above; Paul's
note follows (reprinted with permission).  Thanks, Paul!

	- Dan C.

---
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 11:13:36 -0400
To: Dan Cross <cross@math.psu.edu>
From: Paul C Lustgarten <plus@cosym.net>
Subject: Re: [9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.

Dan,

[Forward or recount to 9fans as appropriate]

At 10:44 AM 6/12/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>In article <Pine.BSF.4.33.0106111351100.67885-100000@lucifer.ducksworth.com> you write:
>>> I used the ORiNOCO card in mine (even though the card still says
>>> Lucent Wavelan on it).  It's the only supported wireless LAN card
>>> that I know of
>>
>>what are you using for your gateway? (i.e. ORiNOCO Residential
>>Gateway RG1000 )
>
>We're using the ORiNOCO access point with 2 card slots; I'm not
>sure of the exact model number but our systems guys tell me that
>there's only one with 2 slots, and when I looked at it a few
>minutes ago it said, ``WaveACCESS Central Office Router'' on it.

There are three key ORiNOCO products, AFAIK:

        - RG1000        Residential Gateway, one slot, *external* LAN
        - AP1000        LAN gateway, two slots & one local LAN
        - AP500         LAN gateway, one slot & one local LAN

The RG1000 is aimed at having *no* local wiring, and thus provides all
the gateway capabilities one might want at the *edge* of a home or small
business LAN - as long as the local LAN is entirely wireless.  I'm using
the AP-1000, with a separate Linksys Etherswitch for my gateway to the
outside world.  My LAN has a mix of wired and wireless segments.

---

Re: [9fans] Wireless lan cards for the bitsy.

[Sam Ducksworth]

----<snip>----

> >We're using the ORiNOCO access point with 2 card slots; I'm not
> >sure of the exact model number but our systems guys tell me that
> >there's only one with 2 slots, and when I looked at it a few
> >minutes ago it said, ``WaveACCESS Central Office Router'' on it.
>
> There are three key ORiNOCO products, AFAIK:
>
>         - RG1000        Residential Gateway, one slot, *external* LAN
>         - AP1000        LAN gateway, two slots & one local LAN
>         - AP500         LAN gateway, one slot & one local LAN
>
> The RG1000 is aimed at having *no* local wiring, and thus provides all
> the gateway capabilities one might want at the *edge* of a home or small
> business LAN - as long as the local LAN is entirely wireless.  I'm using
> the AP-1000, with a separate Linksys Etherswitch for my gateway to the
> outside world.  My LAN has a mix of wired and wireless segments.

After looking over all of the options it think the AP500 and
Wavelan Gold combo looks like the best solution for the money.
thanks for the info.

--sam

Re: [9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?

[pac]

That might be interesting for others, too. If anyone runs Plan 9 on a hardware not listed yet,
I ask him/her to give us a few minutes of his/her time, go to the Plan 9 Wiki at
http://cm.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/44/index.html
and add the hardware to the list.
Many thanks for us all who would like to upgrade our machines.
- Peter.

 
>> Plan 9 runs fine on brand new bitsies and brand new PCs;
>> at least, I'm using Plan 9 on them. Of course there are
>> devices with no Plan 9 driver, but that's a different issue.
>> 
>> 



--
Peter A. Cejchan
Dept. Paleobiology, Inst. Geology Acad. Sci.,
Rozvojova 135, Prague 6
CZ-16502 Czech Republic
<cej@cejchan.gli.cas.cz>

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A plea:
Please, consider your support to the Public Library of Science initiative at
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Re: [9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?

[F.J.Ballesteros]

Plan 9 runs fine on brand new bitsies and brand new PCs;
at least, I'm using Plan 9 on them. Of course there are
devices with no Plan 9 driver, but that's a different issue.

Re: [9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?

[Laura Creighton]

The largest problem we have in popularising Plan 9 is finding old
enough hardware to run it on because it will not run on any of the
new stuff.  The reason that we have this problem is because the
people in 1127 are so completely satisfied with their ability to
do major amounts of real work with the anceint hardware they have
got that they couldn't be bothered to go to the computer hardware
store and buy something made in the past decade, _even though they
are aware that people who want to run plan 9 cannot now because
they can't find old enough hardware_.  (Also because people like me
haven't made a VM ware port yet because we are too damn busy with
the rest of our lives, as usual.)  I'd say _speed_ is not going to
be a problem for you.

While I am here.  Thank you ever so much for so many hours of enjoyment.

Laura

Re: [9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?

[pac]

Don't throw away your hardware, but be prepared to throw away your
software. However, it's worth it! Definitely, try Plan 9 out!
Cross fingers,

Peter


--
Peter A. Cejchan
Dept. Paleobiology, Inst. Geology Acad. Sci.,
Rozvojova 135, Prague 6
CZ-16502 Czech Republic
<cej@cejchan.gli.cas.cz>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea:
Please, consider your support to the Public Library of Science initiative at
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[9fans] old NEC Versa S/50 useful?

[Stephen King]

I gather from all that I've read here and in the various FAQ that I will
be able to get plan 9 running on my NEC Versa S/50 once I get a larger
hard drive and NIC. Question is, will I then be able to do anything
useful with it? I'm wondering about the performance I might expect from
a 50MHz '486 - will it be so sluggish that I'll wish I hadn't bothered?
This machine served me well for years, but Win3.1 has had it's time ;-)

BTW. My other machine's a 7 year old Indy and it's going to give me a
few more years of service!

I HATE throwing away hardware that still works, and I really want to try
a few things with Plan 9.

Thanks!

-- 
"I think my life is fuller because I realize that I
don't know what I'm doing" - Richard Feynman, 1979.