[HECnet] two dumb RSX questions

[Lee Gleason]

On the 11/74 you more or less had this, in the form of hotplugging whole bus segments. One a bus segment was disconnected, you could power it off, and remove controllers if you wanted.

This reminds me of a conversation I overheard at an RSX Magic Session, at a DECUS symposium in the 80s. A customer was asking Brian McCarthy, a noted RSX developer, a lot of questions about the legendary 11/74 and the   RSX11M+ additions that had been made to support it. They were discussing the multiple Unibuses   (Unibusen? Unibeese?) and the software that controls them. The user pointed out that the three letter task name for the Host Reconfiguration Task (HRC...) was a little tortured - it would have made more sense to be HRT. Brian said that internally they had called it Hercules, and HRC was the three letter abbreviation they chose for it. The user asks, "Why Hercules?". Brian   said that it took a Hercules to wrestle the three headed dog that was the device configuration databases involved into submission.

--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.gleason at comcast.net 

---
This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active.
http://www.avast.com