Want to use QNX for classroom lab

QNX Newsgroups (Archives) comp.os.qnx
1

Hi;

I’m putting together a computer lab for a small, non-profit private school
(under 125 students in all grades). They have gotten a donation of
Intel-based 133s with NICs and 2Gig HDs. A problem that they have had in
the past is security. Some hotshot kid cracks in and screws up the system
(they had some 486 machines running NT).

I ran across the QNX demo the other day, and I was floored by all it could
do. It occurred to me that this would be a novel answer to their problem.
If the machines could all boot up from QNX, accessing a server for the
applications and storage, no one could really screw things up, since you
could just pop in the disk and reload in a few moments.

I’m still working on writing the textbook for the class (8th grade level).
It previously included history, architecture, DOS, Word Processing,
Spreadsheets, Databases, HTML, and a brief overview of UNIX basics if there
was time at the end of the year. I imagine it will all have to be
HTML-based if I go the QNX route.

My questions are as follows:

  1. Does anyone have any experience with setting up a small LAN/Intranet of
    this nature using the materials I mentioned?

  2. Does anyone have any experience mediating between the developers and a
    non-profit (in this case religious and educational) organization that has no
    IT budget to speak of?

  3. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanx in advance;

Me

2

Previously, Me wrote in comp.os.qnx:

I’m putting together a computer lab for a small, non-profit private school
(under 125 students in all grades). They have gotten a donation of
Intel-based 133s with NICs and 2Gig HDs. A problem that they have had in
the past is security. Some hotshot kid cracks in and screws up the system
(they had some 486 machines running NT).

How much memory? What kind of video cards? What brand of NIC?

I ran across the QNX demo the other day, and I was floored by all it could
do. It occurred to me that this would be a novel answer to their problem.
If the machines could all boot up from QNX, accessing a server for the
applications and storage, no one could really screw things up, since you
could just pop in the disk and reload in a few moments.

Well you might want to put on a script on a floppy to setup their
network, enter a host name and such.

I’m still working on writing the textbook for the class (8th grade level).
It previously included history, architecture, DOS, Word Processing,
Spreadsheets, Databases, HTML, and a brief overview of UNIX basics if there
was time at the end of the year. I imagine it will all have to be
HTML-based if I go the QNX route.

There’s a very attractive (Word look alike) word processor available.

My questions are as follows:

  1. Does anyone have any experience with setting up a small LAN/Intranet of
    this nature using the materials I mentioned?

You didn’t say how small. You might be squeezing RTP a bit on 133’s,
and getting the GNU compiler to run may or not be acceptable in that
environment.

  1. Does anyone have any experience mediating between the developers and a
    non-profit (in this case religious and educational) organization that has no
    IT budget to speak of?

I don’t have this experience, but the free license we hear
about over and over is “For Non-Commercial Use”. Well, if a
non-profit school isn’t non-commercial use, I don’t know what
is.

  1. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Yes, load up RTP on one of your 133’s and see how it performs.

BTW, where are you located? If you were in my area, I’d might
be willing to help out.

Mitchell Schoenbrun --------- maschoen@pobox.com

3

Mitchell Schoenbrun <maschoen@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:Voyager.010616121652.438A@schoenbrun.com…

Previously, Me wrote in comp.os.qnx:

snip
(they had some 486 machines running NT).
snip

You didn’t say how small. You might be squeezing RTP a bit on 133’s,
and getting the GNU compiler to run may or not be acceptable in that
environment.

But certainly more accepable than NT and Visual Studio on a 486! :slight_smile:

4

Me <me@here.now> wrote:

  1. Does anyone have any experience with setting up a small LAN/Intranet of
    this nature using the materials I mentioned?

Yes. I have setup labs with 133 and 166’s with 32M of RAM to be used
for development. Worked out very well.

  1. Does anyone have any experience mediating between the developers and a
    non-profit (in this case religious and educational) organization that has no
    IT budget to speak of?

  2. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Yeah - send me an email and I will forward you over to our educational
program person. QNX has a long history of helping out schools and projects.

chris

–

cdm@qnx.com > “The faster I go, the behinder I get.”

Chris McKillop – Lewis Carroll –
Software Engineer, QSSL
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

5

Chris McKillop wrote:

Me <> me@here.now> > wrote:

  1. Does anyone have any experience with setting up a small LAN/Intranet of
    this nature using the materials I mentioned?


    Yes. I have setup labs with 133 and 166’s with 32M of RAM to be used
    for development. Worked out very well.

    \

  2. Does anyone have any experience mediating between the developers and a
    non-profit (in this case religious and educational) organization that has no
    IT budget to speak of?

  3. Does anyone have any suggestions?


    Yeah - send me an email and I will forward you over to our educational
    program person. QNX has a long history of helping out schools and projects.

chris

Indeed, wasn’t QNX (implicit 1) used this way nearly 20 years ago in Ontario
schools?

–

cdm@qnx.com > “The faster I go, the behinder I get.”
Chris McKillop – Lewis Carroll –
Software Engineer, QSSL

6

Chris McKillop wrote:

Me <> me@here.now> > wrote:

  1. Does anyone have any experience with setting up a small LAN/Intranet of
    this nature using the materials I mentioned?


    Yes. I have setup labs with 133 and 166’s with 32M of RAM to be used
    for development. Worked out very well.

Dude, I remember doing Photon development on 386 with 8Mb :wink:

  • igor
7

Igor Kovalenko wrote:

Dude, I remember doing Photon development on 386 with 8Mb > :wink:

The same, but 4Mb :slight_smile: Who less?

Oleg

8

“Oleg A. Khamayko” <olegax@mail.ru> wrote in message
news:3B31A2A0.28D9E56A@mail.ru…

Igor Kovalenko wrote:

Dude, I remember doing Photon development on 386 with 8Mb > :wink:

The same, but 4Mb > :slight_smile: > Who less?

Trouble was, I had to reboot into Windows to write doc in Word. That was ~70
page book, don’t tell me you also did that in 4Mb =8-}

  • Igor
9

OK, OK.

Who else remembers writing Tic-Tac-Toe on an Altair 8800 in 128 bytes? All
you had to do was flip bit switches to play.

Boy those were the good old days. “OS? We don’t need no stinking OS!”

“Igor Kovalenko” <kovalenko@home.com> wrote in message
news:9gs8n1$ooh$1@inn.qnx.com…

“Oleg A. Khamayko” <> olegax@mail.ru> > wrote in message
news:> 3B31A2A0.28D9E56A@mail.ru> …

Igor Kovalenko wrote:

Dude, I remember doing Photon development on 386 with 8Mb > :wink:

The same, but 4Mb > :slight_smile: > Who less?

10

LOL. Still, I’ve done funnier things:

  1. Tape formatting and bootloader in 4 commands on a machine you would not
    dream about in your nightmares. It had 45-bit long words (that’s not a typo)
    and you’d enter those 4 commands using those very flip bit switches, the
    thing had 4 rows of 45 pieces of them and looked much like an odd piano. I’m
    not sure how much total memory it had, because sound of magnetic drums
    starting up scared me away (it resembled sound of a chopper taking off right
    in front of you :wink: I know though its main memory was made of ferrite
    solenoids, and CPU was made of plain transistors, dodge that :wink:

  2. Back in high school I used to program a calculator, which had 98 bytes of
    memory, 15 registers and stack to some 5 registers. It ran space flight
    simulation games, involving landing to moon, take off and docking with a
    station, entering the Earth atmosphere, etc. Of course the only way to
    control a game was to punch fuel, time, etc, values right into registers and
    then see speed and altitude on numeric display :wink:

Who’s up to beat that? :slight_smile:

  • igor

“Bill Caroselli @ Q-TPS” <Bill_Caroselli@Q-TPS.com> wrote in message
news:92rY6.1012$CF3.129003@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net…

OK, OK.

Who else remembers writing Tic-Tac-Toe on an Altair 8800 in 128 bytes?
All
you had to do was flip bit switches to play.

Boy those were the good old days. “OS? We don’t need no stinking OS!”

“Igor Kovalenko” <> kovalenko@home.com> > wrote in message
news:9gs8n1$ooh$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
“Oleg A. Khamayko” <> olegax@mail.ru> > wrote in message
news:> 3B31A2A0.28D9E56A@mail.ru> …

Igor Kovalenko wrote:

Dude, I remember doing Photon development on 386 with 8Mb > :wink:

The same, but 4Mb > :slight_smile: > Who less?

11

In article <92rY6.1012$CF3.129003@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
Bill_Caroselli@Q-TPS.com says…

OK, OK.

Who else remembers writing Tic-Tac-Toe on an Altair 8800 in 128 bytes? All
you had to do was flip bit switches to play.

Still got mine in the garage…

Don’t do much with it anymore, though! :sunglasses:

Boy those were the good old days. “OS? We don’t need no stinking OS!”

“Igor Kovalenko” <> kovalenko@home.com> > wrote in message
news:9gs8n1$ooh$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
“Oleg A. Khamayko” <> olegax@mail.ru> > wrote in message
news:> 3B31A2A0.28D9E56A@mail.ru> …

Igor Kovalenko wrote:

Dude, I remember doing Photon development on 386 with 8Mb > :wink:

The same, but 4Mb > :slight_smile: > Who less?

\

–
Stephen Munnings
Software Developer
Corman Technologies Inc.

12

“Igor Kovalenko” <kovalenko@home.com> wrote in message
news:9gtidb$jf4$1@inn.qnx.com…

LOL. Still, I’ve done funnier things:

  1. Tape formatting and bootloader in 4 commands on a machine you would not
    dream about in your nightmares. It had 45-bit long words (that’s not a
    typo)
    and you’d enter those 4 commands using those very flip bit switches, the
    thing had 4 rows of 45 pieces of them and looked much like an odd piano.
    I’m
    not sure how much total memory it had, because sound of magnetic drums
    starting up scared me away (it resembled sound of a chopper taking off
    right
    in front of you > :wink: > I know though its main memory was made of ferrite
    solenoids, and CPU was made of plain transistors, dodge that > :wink:

  2. Back in high school I used to program a calculator, which had 98 bytes
    of
    memory, 15 registers and stack to some 5 registers. It ran space flight
    simulation games, involving landing to moon, take off and docking with a
    station, entering the Earth atmosphere, etc. Of course the only way to
    control a game was to punch fuel, time, etc, values right into registers
    and
    then see speed and altitude on numeric display > :wink:

Who’s up to beat that? > :slight_smile:

I’m very very very happy to say I can’t

  • igor

“Bill Caroselli @ Q-TPS” <> Bill_Caroselli@Q-TPS.com> > wrote in message
news:92rY6.1012$> CF3.129003@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net> …
OK, OK.

Who else remembers writing Tic-Tac-Toe on an Altair 8800 in 128 bytes?
All
you had to do was flip bit switches to play.

Boy those were the good old days. “OS? We don’t need no stinking OS!”

“Igor Kovalenko” <> kovalenko@home.com> > wrote in message
news:9gs8n1$ooh$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
“Oleg A. Khamayko” <> olegax@mail.ru> > wrote in message
news:> 3B31A2A0.28D9E56A@mail.ru> …

Igor Kovalenko wrote:

Dude, I remember doing Photon development on 386 with 8Mb > :wink:

The same, but 4Mb > :slight_smile: > Who less?
\

13

Previously, Igor Kovalenko wrote in comp.os.qnx:

Who’s up to beat that? > :slight_smile:

  • igor

Well, the hardware I had was more advanced: 32KB Apple ][ Plus with a cassette recorder for mass storage. Audio cassettes aren’t the easiest medium to work with, but I was eventually able to hear the difference between a BASIC file, a binary executable file, and a data file. I was also able to tell Apple recordings from TRS-80 and Atari recordings.

  • PDM
14

Hi there,

It works well on P133, but compared to QNX4,
QNX6 is quite slow in graphic mode.

For instance, ls -lFa on a directory inside a shell which is longer than the
video screen,
takes forever, makes me dream about a 8086 DOS mode.
It scroll at at incredible speed of 1 line per second.

We bougth a new lab of P3 with 128 MB of RAM,
in order to upgrade from QNX4 to QNX6.

It works great on P3 perhaps.

Some tune up of video drivers for scrolling,
instead of emulation, could be done for the guys,
who wants to recycle those computers.

I think that Linux has better video driver for old video cards
and is more suitable for such an environment, even if QNX is really cool.

Sincerly yours,
Fred.


Chris McKillop <cdm@qnx.com> wrote in message
news:9gho4n$npb$1@nntp.qnx.com…

Me <> me@here.now> > wrote:

  1. Does anyone have any experience with setting up a small LAN/Intranet
    of
    this nature using the materials I mentioned?


    Yes. I have setup labs with 133 and 166’s with 32M of RAM to be used
    for development. Worked out very well.

    \

  2. Does anyone have any experience mediating between the developers and
    a
    non-profit (in this case religious and educational) organization that
    has no
    IT budget to speak of?

  3. Does anyone have any suggestions?


    Yeah - send me an email and I will forward you over to our educational
    program person. QNX has a long history of helping out schools and
    projects.

chris

–

cdm@qnx.com > “The faster I go, the behinder I get.”
Chris McKillop – Lewis Carroll –
Software Engineer, QSSL

15

Indeed, wasn’t QNX (implicit 1) used this way nearly 20 years ago in
Ontario
schools?

There was a computer called the ICON that ran QNX. I used it in High School.

]{ritsoph