Wonderful presentation of a rare piece of computer history. These Xerox systems led the way to so much technology in the following decades.

@compu85

8 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@Olgasys

7 ай бұрын

One must agree with Steve Jobs. They make amazing things but they can't sell them. The only things got close to object orientation are NeXT and OS/2 years later. Imagine saying "You will pay extra for a clock and bold capability"

A machine I used frequently... except loaded with different microcode, running Interlisp.

@compu85

8 ай бұрын

I just got the extra RAM for the control store, I hope to get Smalltalk running on it soon!

@AdrianMoir

5 ай бұрын

I used to work on these in the UK main EU HQ, 1,000 people in one building, all with a machine, all networked.

@AdrianMoir

5 ай бұрын

@@compu85 They also did a 386 'Compainion' box which replaced the emulation board. Two variants, 16Mhz & 20Mhz 386 processors. Used to know most of the VP boot codes & error codes off by heart. The dreaded 0951 = failed disk scavenge. If the machine goes into a scavenge (0950) to repair the disk pages, it can take a long time. If it results in an 0951, this means the scavenge failed and requires either a new disk or manual intervention. Network boot into expert mode, ( you need to know the special password ;-) ) you can then get bad disk pages and assign them to the bad page list. Once done, scavenge the scavenger volume, this provides more space for the main scavenge operation. Then run the main scavenge again (0950), it if is successful, VP will start up, recommend that you then log out and save desktop to a remote network file server. Change the disk, Install VP (we used to boot from net and install from an install server), boot and recover desktop from file server. The other one that was popular was 0149 - this is the disk not loading the microcode, often it was the 40Mb half-height Seagate disk where it's heads had 'stuck' to the platters, known as "sticktion". Pull the drive and give it a sharp rotation movement with the disk in it's verticle plane, you hear the heads go clunk, then re-insert and it'll boot up. The boards were quite robust, but sometimes they would fail. IO and Memory borads were the most common. Great video, brought back so many memories, looking after 1,000+ of these machines was a continuous task along with all the network storage, removable disks, clearing house and routing servers.

Thanks for this, really fascinating system. Also glad to see you setting the record straight on what Apple did borrow and what they didn't.

@compu85

8 ай бұрын

I hope to get Smalltalk going on this system for a good demo of what Apple did see on the PARC visit.

@Olgasys

7 ай бұрын

I think it is also because normal people never saw these things. Speaking of unknown systems one should demo/document Burroughs MCP. I was totally amazed the way it works and still current in 2023.

Seeing that many chips on a single PCB is always my favorite part of these breakdowns.

@compu85

8 ай бұрын

The boards in an 8010 Star are even crazier. Bigger boards, more chips, and connectors on both sides!

This is a great demo of a very rare system in working order! But next time, please shoot video in 1080p or 4k, so that the demonstration can represent the screen and have less/no compression artifacts. It is unfortunate that the printing on some chips is blurry, and the screen heavily aliased, because this video is 720p.

@compu85

8 ай бұрын

I'd love to have shot it at a higher resolution - annoyingly, I only have a 720p camera at present! I need to rectify that....

Very interesting to see the little UI kludges and rough spots (e.g. the warning about waiting for a specific status code before power off; manual repagination hidden in a menu; slow graphics drawing at least compared to the Mac which was highly optimized for the 68k and other Macintosh hardware only) that, one assumes, might have been eventually improved in future versions if the product had been more successful. (Or, at Apple, Steve Jobs would have yelled at people until it was fixed before release.)

@compu85

5 ай бұрын

The 6085 II is quite a bit faster from what I've read. And this machine is quicker than an 8010 Star!

I've come back to this video multiple times and have an irrational love for Xerox (how on earth did you find one!). I'd really love 3D models of the case, monitor, and mouse, but I might have to make them myself. I subscribed and hope you'll cover it still more.

@compu85

13 күн бұрын

I plan to! I got a 2nd unit that has problems, so there'll be more to dive into. I'm also going to show this system at VCF West later this year!

@tommythorn

13 күн бұрын

@@compu85I’ll be there with camera and calipers:)

Los nuevos nunca entenderán esta parte de la historia de la computación. Ahora son auténticos dinosaurios pero en su época eran lo más cool

@compu85

5 ай бұрын

It is good to know the past so we can put today in context!

I used to fix these, I worked for Xerox in the late eighties, early 90's.

@compu85

5 ай бұрын

Any good stories? :)

@AdrianMoir

5 ай бұрын

Many! The most changed item were the screens. We’d change 3-4 a week. You can have fun with the screens, you can flip the X and Y plate connections, it’ll turn the image upside down and back to front. The air inlets would get clogged with dust. Heads in the disks would get stuck, a shake of the disk is required. Saved a few desktops data from loss by using the advanced tools to add bad pages and scavenge the volume. All the systems were connected to a network, big thick co-ax where you had to tap a new connection live. If you got it wrong that entire network segment would go down. We also had the 386 companion boxes. Could be run independently or attached to a 6085. Used to know most of the boot codes off by heart. Keyboards were another issue, usually coffee, but there was a trend for metallic nail varnish, flakes of it would get into the keyboard and short circuit keys.

@AdrianMoir

5 ай бұрын

Also used to maintain the 8010 systems file servers and removable storage systems. Changing and realigning the heads by hand, all 20 of them. Also saw some of the newer 8090 systems and Sparc IPX boxes. Trained on all of the aspects of XNS, clearing house servers, routers etc. It was a great grounding for networking. We also introduced 10Base-T, Cat 3 and fibre networking. Dec VMS, MS-Dos all co-existing.

@compu85

5 ай бұрын

@@AdrianMoir Wow so they had you actually swapping CRTs out, not just replacing the whole monitor?

@AdrianMoir

5 ай бұрын

@@compu85 We swapped out the entire monitors, but you could play with to a certain extent. Focus, brightness etc.

how is your 350sdl doing? Always loved vids of that car! Marlon

@compu85

7 ай бұрын

Sadly it blew the head gasket. It's been parked for 6 months... too many projects.

Xerox didn't have a clue about the significance of what they had brought to life.

@compu85

8 ай бұрын

Xerox corporate sure didn't. But there blame to go around. If Parc, SDD, sales, and Corp could've been on the same page things would be very different today.

@JeffTiberend

Ай бұрын

Exactly! Apple, Microsoft, and IBM wouldn't have had a chance. Till this could have been reverse engineered.

So, did this system offer terminal emulation so that you would be able to access IBM mainframes and datastores?

@compu85

Ай бұрын

Yes! And you could connect either locally, or to a terminal concentrator over Ethernet.

@JeffTiberend

Ай бұрын

@@compu85 Now, I’m wondering if token ring was directly supported or if you had to have something to translate between token ring and Ethernet.

@compu85

Ай бұрын

@@JeffTiberend you would need a token ring MAU with an AUI port, and hook up an Ethernet transceiver. That would get you hooked up at the physical layer.

The activation password for software is aaaaaaaaaah58

@compu85

2 ай бұрын

Oh ya? Does it care about the date?

Awesome system - well done!