When does it makes sense to start using automation tools such as ansible, saltstack etc?
Is it when you have enough machines (VMs, containes etc) so the work to automate is less than the work to do the same repetitive things over and over?
Does it make sense for 10, 50, 100 VMs/containers or when?
What's the purpose of cages in datacenters? Is it a requirement for PCI DSS?
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@donahue said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
Example...
In the era IBM made the PC and soon thereafter Compaq made a PC-compatible. Using x86 that wasn't PC compatible was common and easy at the time (hard now.) And if you had an 8086, that meant it couldn't be a PC or PC-compatible as no one made that. If you had an 8088 it was likely PC or PC-compatible, but not for certain.
But PC always meant IBM's PC line, and PC-compatible always meant PC architecture that wasn't made by IBM. Not longer after that, they were all called PC as it was PC architecture either way.
But if you use PC to mean something else, it would be super confusing because you'd be talking about machines that had nothing alike between them. Because an 8086 machine couldn't run PC software.
I still remember the phrase "IBM compatible". I never knew what it meant at the time, I always associated that with DOS and Windows as a kid.
LOL, yeah definitely doesn't mean that. That would have been "Microsoft compatible", if we were going by companies.
IBM compatible was always a misnomer, as would be Microsoft compatible. Since when DOS came about, Microsoft's main product was actually XENIX UNIX, so being compatible with Microsoft would be more towards Linux, than DOS.
IBM always had many products and they were in no way compatible with each other. Today, nothing that people traditionally associate with IBM is compatible with anything IBM makes. IBM compatible today means more than it ever did, as IBM today uses a single platform family, the Power family.
It was really IBM PC compatible, not IBM compatible, that was the proper term and what other manufacturer used when describing their products. But it surely was talked about as IBM compatible, PC compatible, compatible, clone, PC etc.
Which reminds me of IBM's PS/2. A failure in my opinion but we got the PS/2 keyboard and mouse connector out of it. Before that is was the 5-pin DIN connector for the keyboard and serial RS232 for the mouse.
@phlipelder said in My first computer:
@dashrender said in My first computer:
I bought my first computer when I was 12 (1988). It was a used 8088 with 640K memory (if memory serves), amber screen, two 5.25 floppies, no hard disk - $250. turned right around and went to Sam's club and bought a 30 MB drive for $300 - that was pre ATA (is that called Winchester?) My dad installed the drive, then I installed DOS 3.x on it.
I know I used computers before that, but I don't recall what they were though. I do remember playing with an Apple IIe in elemetry school, but we didn't have one at home. I think my computer was the first one owned by us in the house. Though my dad had a "portable" computer from the military that he brought home often. It was as large as carry on luggage today.
MFM was the precursor to parallel ATA and SCSI IIRC. The drives filled two 5 1/4" drive bays full-height and were xMB to xxMB in size.
I think MFM was really the encoding of the data on the drive but the interface was ST-506.
The first SCSI disk I got was for a file server and it was a monster drive from Micropolis. It was state-of-the-art, fast seek times and about 500 MB. Normal disks were 20-40MB at the time.
@dashrender said in My first computer:
But PC is a full system architecture, not just computers based on 8086 family processors. That was my point. Back in the 8086 and 8088 eras, half of the machines made with those processors (some 8088s and all 8086s) were not PC, but were x86.
oh - I forgot that Scott loves to jump on the "PC is an architecture" bit. Not saying he's wrong, just that most people don't talk about it that way.
Well, it's true but it sure doesn't matter much. You would need IBM PC compatible hardware for it to be a PC. That meant a BIOS, all DMA and interrupt circuitry, 8042 keyboard controller, ISA expansion slots etc etc.
I remember I had a book detailing every hardware aspect of the PC and another book detailing all BIOS functions into minute detail. I was writing device drivers in assembler at the time which was really in-depth stuff.
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
Similarly, Motorola later make an 88000 RISC processor, too, as a RISC counterpart to their 68000 CISC processor family. Never really took off, though.
Yeah, many things have failed over the years.
And also similar to Intel's 8088, Motorola made their cheaper variation of the 68000 called the 68008. But it was the 68K architecture - 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030 etc.
Assembler on the 68K where beautiful compared to the cluster-f*ck of the x86.
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@dashrender said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
@dashrender said in My first computer:
I bought my first computer when I was 12 (1988). It was a used 8088 with 640K memory (if memory serves), amber screen, two 5.25 floppies, no hard disk - $250. turned right around and went to Sam's club and bought a 30 MB drive for $300 - that was pre ATA (is that called Winchester?) My dad installed the drive, then I installed DOS 3.x on it.
I know I used computers before that, but I don't recall what they were though. I do remember playing with an Apple IIe in elemetry school, but we didn't have one at home. I think my computer was the first one owned by us in the house. Though my dad had a "portable" computer from the military that he brought home often. It was as large as carry on luggage today.
Before ATA I think it was ST-506 interface. "Serious" computers used SCSI disks though.
lol - I'm pretty sure the 8088 was considered a PC, not sure about the 'seriousness' of it.. but I wouldn't expect most home users to have SCSI.
Some 8088 were PC, some were not. Only the PC ones got famous in years later. But at the time, there were loads of non-PC 8088 based computers.
Actually 8086 was the real CPU (hence the name x86 architecture).
The 8088 was just a cheaper variation with 8-bit external bus (8088) instead of the standard 16-bit bus.Yup, I'm very aware, was already in to computers when PC architecture came out.
8086 was never used in a PC however. PC architecture, which required x86, used 8088 in all the first models, not the 8086 to save money. But the 8088 was an x86. But the 186, 286, and so forth all got used in real world PCs, while the 8086 did not. You could, in theory, make an 8086 based PC, it fits in the architecture, but they didn't release at the time.
But PC is a full system architecture, not just computers based on 8086 family processors. That was my point. Back in the 8086 and 8088 eras, half of the machines made with those processors (some 8088s and all 8086s) were not PC, but were x86.
Yes, agreed.
But kids today think the 8086 is the Intel Core i7-8086K. 
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@dbeato said in My first computer:
My First Computer was with an Intel Pentium 2 and the Intel SE440BX-2 motherboard.
Get off my lawn!
:thumbs_up:
This is what the first generation PC motherboards looked like. If you like me were building PCs back then, you had to have an eprom-programmer and UV eraser if you wanted to update the bios (ICs in the top middle with labels). And you had to put all the memory chips in sockets yourself (the lower right area on the pic). 640 KByte was a lot of memory.
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@dashrender said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
@dashrender said in My first computer:
I bought my first computer when I was 12 (1988). It was a used 8088 with 640K memory (if memory serves), amber screen, two 5.25 floppies, no hard disk - $250. turned right around and went to Sam's club and bought a 30 MB drive for $300 - that was pre ATA (is that called Winchester?) My dad installed the drive, then I installed DOS 3.x on it.
I know I used computers before that, but I don't recall what they were though. I do remember playing with an Apple IIe in elemetry school, but we didn't have one at home. I think my computer was the first one owned by us in the house. Though my dad had a "portable" computer from the military that he brought home often. It was as large as carry on luggage today.
Before ATA I think it was ST-506 interface. "Serious" computers used SCSI disks though.
lol - I'm pretty sure the 8088 was considered a PC, not sure about the 'seriousness' of it.. but I wouldn't expect most home users to have SCSI.
Some 8088 were PC, some were not. Only the PC ones got famous in years later. But at the time, there were loads of non-PC 8088 based computers.
Actually 8086 was the real CPU (hence the name x86 architecture).
The 8088 was just a cheaper variation with 8-bit external bus (8088) instead of the standard 16-bit bus.
@pete-s said in My first computer:
@dashrender said in My first computer:
Before ATA I think it was ST-506 interface. "Serious" computers used SCSI disks though.
lol - I'm pretty sure the 8088 was considered a PC, not sure about the 'seriousness' of it.. but I wouldn't expect most home users to have SCSI.
With "serious" I meant workstation/servers contrary to desktops. When IBM brought the PC to the market, every machine was serious money, I think around $3K to $4K.
Around that time was also the time when servers actually took off in the PC market. First it was networks cards with twisted pair and drivers on top of MS-DOS. More peer-to-peer type file transfer. But when Novell made their Netware 286 it started to take off. You would then run IPX/SPX drivers on top of MS-DOS and a server running Novell Netware would do file sharing, login and what not. Network was then coax cables.
The file server was born.
@dashrender said in My first computer:
Before ATA I think it was ST-506 interface. "Serious" computers used SCSI disks though.
lol - I'm pretty sure the 8088 was considered a PC, not sure about the 'seriousness' of it.. but I wouldn't expect most home users to have SCSI.
With "serious" I meant workstation/servers contrary to desktops. When IBM brought the PC to the market, every machine was serious money, I think around $3K to $4K.
@dashrender said in My first computer:
I bought my first computer when I was 12 (1988). It was a used 8088 with 640K memory (if memory serves), amber screen, two 5.25 floppies, no hard disk - $250. turned right around and went to Sam's club and bought a 30 MB drive for $300 - that was pre ATA (is that called Winchester?) My dad installed the drive, then I installed DOS 3.x on it.
I know I used computers before that, but I don't recall what they were though. I do remember playing with an Apple IIe in elemetry school, but we didn't have one at home. I think my computer was the first one owned by us in the house. Though my dad had a "portable" computer from the military that he brought home often. It was as large as carry on luggage today.
Before ATA I think it was ST-506 interface. "Serious" computers used SCSI disks though.
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@hobbit666 said in My first computer:
Does an Amiga 500 count?
If not my First "PC" was a 486 Tiny ComputerHe didn't say PC, all of us posting had computers before PCs even existed. The 500 was well into the PC era, so you are unique there, but it was common at the time not to use PCs at home.
My first Amiga was the Amiga 1000, I still have it.
The Amiga 500 was an awesome computer for arcade style gaming. It had sprites and good sound. I had one too. Motorola 68000 16/32 bit CPU in those machines. Same as Apple had in their Macintosh before the started with PowerPC.
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@pete-s exact one in the picture that I posted, lol.
Except the keyboard.
@scottalanmiller said in My first computer:
@pete-s said in My first computer:
@scottalanmiller I remember the Commodore too. But maybe another similar model. It was touted as a serious machine. Before VIC-20 and Commodore C64. Motorola clone 6502 and 6510 CPUs in those. Same CPU as Apples first computer, the one that basically started the company and made it into more than a couple of guys in a garage.
This was CBM, before they even used the title Commodore alone. This one was 1977, but business, not consumer. VIC=20 was right after it in 1980. The VIC=20 was their first consumer model. Although they were super similar in a lot of ways under the hood.
Yes, if I remember correctly I saw "your" machine in a shop that was selling business supplies and I they had some business applications running on it. But I think it had a full size keyboard on it. Anyway, the application might have been VisiCalc, the grand-daddy of Excel. Impressive stuff at the time.
@scottalanmiller I remember the Commodore too. But maybe another similar model. It was touted as a serious machine. Before VIC-20 and Commodore C64. Motorola clone 6502 and 6510 CPUs in those. Same CPU as Apples first computer, the one that basically started the company and made it into more than a couple of guys in a garage.
@scottalanmiller I remember the first time I actually saw a system with a winchester drive. I had no idea what it was except it was this thing that was like a floppy disk but with more space than you ever going to need.
This was the first computer I used - Burroughs mainframe B6700.
What was the first computer you used?
@momurda Don't sweat it. Life is not long enough to learn everything about everything.
