Thanks for the memories...

[ewmayer]

I just finished dismantling my very first Alpha system, a 200Mhz 21064-based pedestal-format server, vintage 1993 - due to filesystem damage it no longer boots, and I really have no use for such a large power-hungry monster anymore. Selling it off for medical experiments, erm, I mean parts, to a reseller who specializes in old Alpha systems. Imagine - truly 64-bit RISC processor and OS - more than a decade later, Microsoft and Intel are still dicking around with 32-bit and CISC-trying-really-hard-to-pretend-it's-a-RISC. Too bad DEC (then Compaq, then HP) did such a terrible, dismal, horrid, godawful job marketing (I use the word *very* loosely) what was an outstanding, cutting-edge technology.

I will of course continue to develop Alpha-architecture-specific portions of my Mlucas code, but as far as actual hardware I own is concerned, from here on it's a nice small laptop PC with a decent compiler/debugger, fast internet connection, and hot-swappable backup hard drive - that takes up a just a wee bit less space, and uses a lot less electricity.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

I just finished dismantling my very first Alpha system, a 200Mhz 21064-based pedestal-format server, vintage 1993 - due to filesystem damage it no longer boots, and I really have no use for such a large power-hungry monster anymore.

Requiescat In Partis

Do you still have easy access to Alpha boxes? If need be, my AlphaStation 250 4/266 could become available.

Paul

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by xilman

Requiescat In Partis

Rest in pieces, indeed. ;)

Do you still have easy access to Alpha boxes? If need be, my AlphaStation 250 4/266 could become available.

Paul

Yes I do - one more reason I don't need to own that kind of hardware myself anymore. But thanks for the kind offer, Paul.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Rest in pieces, indeed. ;)

Sorry, I have a penchant for bilingual word play. Trilingual if I can manage it, though that is much harder.

Perhaps someone can complete the following I once saw inscribed on the wall of a men's toilet in my Oxford college.

Eeny meeny miny mo
Porcum capo digito
....
....

The third line was in Greek, (it rhymed and scanned), and the fourth in Cyrillic. I don't remember the third line. I could reverse engineer the fourth line myself easily enough, it being but a transliteration of the first, but there doesn't seem much point without the third. Although I can produce wordplay in English, French, German and Latin with a bit of effort, my knowledge of Greek is minimal.

You get a better class of graffiti at Oxbridge.

Paul

[jasonp]

Originally Posted by xilman

Eeny meeny miny mo
Porcum capo digito
....
....

The third line was in Greek, (it rhymed and scanned), and the fourth in Cyrillic. I don't remember the third line. I could reverse engineer the fourth line myself easily enough, it being but a transliteration of the first, but there doesn't seem much point without the third. Although I can produce wordplay in English, French, German and Latin with a bit of effort, my knowledge of Greek is minimal.

You get a better class of graffiti at Oxbridge.

Spelled phonetically, maybe it was something like:

Ahn Fonazi Asse' Toh

(if he yells, leave it...or something)

I speak conversational greek, but can't write it worth a damn.

jasonp

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by jasonp

Spelled phonetically, maybe it was something like:

Ahn Fonazi Asse' Toh

(if he yells, leave it...or something)

I speak conversational greek, but can't write it worth a damn.

With a last name like yours, we would expect no less.

I can only help in German (and perhaps Spanish, if things get desperate and I'm sufficiently drunk), but was only able to come up with a quasi-rhyming line 3 that needs a trailing "s":

Falls er aufschreit, lass ihn los

p.s. to JasonP: Speaking of Greek, what's the status of the TT - 1 stage 1 run you started over a year ago, which you said you expected to finish this spring? Irrespective of whether you found a stage 1 factor (I'd be highly surprised and delighted if you did), did you find/develop a suitable in-place GCD routine for numbers this big? If so, did you test it on your stage 1 residue by raising the latter to the single large prime in the TT - 1 decomposition of the known factor and then doing a GCD?

[jasonp]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

p.s. to JasonP: Speaking of Greek, what's the status of the TT - 1 stage 1 run you started over a year ago, which you said you expected to finish this spring? Irrespective of whether you found a stage 1 factor (I'd be highly surprised and delighted if you did), did you find/develop a suitable in-place GCD routine for numbers this big? If so, did you test it on your stage 1 residue by raising the latter to the single large prime in the TT - 1 decomposition of the known factor and then doing a GCD?

Moving the computations to the opteron sped things up so much that by late July of last year stage 1 finished. I haven't had the time (or frankly the inclination...a GCD that big would be a hideous amount of work given that all the current implementations assume everything fits in RAM with room to spare) to implement the GCD and finish the job. I suppose I could have coded up a Lehmer GCD, but it would probably still be chugging away even now if I tried it.

And so all those savefiles are just still sitting around.

jasonp

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by jasonp

a GCD that big would be a hideous amount of work given that all the current implementations assume everything fits in RAM with room to spare) to implement the GCD and finish the job.

Eenie meenie, mini me,
Factorize minus one plus p,
When you're finished do a GCD,
If you've got the memory.

I know, it's so bad it's enough to make you .

[jasonp]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Eenie meenie, mini me,
Factorize minus one plus p,
When you're finished do a GCD,
If you've got the memory.

I know, it's so bad it's enough to make you .

This calls for bad haiku:

Scale a huge mountain
Exhausted, so near the top
And yet so far

jasonp

[nomadicus]

R.I.P. Alpha.
Still use them at work but their days are numbered. I did a lot of factoring on them though -- 12 CPUs. Can't any more.

[emily]

hey ewmayer, your homepage, last updated 2005, lists two other Alpha machines, Derek and David. Still have them? and have you got pics of them like that of Nigel?

How much power did Nigel use?