from Hacker News

The Passing of Ucbvax (1994)

by ecliptik on 4/26/25, 8:02 PM with 21 comments

  • by EvanAnderson on 4/27/25, 1:14 AM

    I love the ceremony associated with this machine's retirement. As I get older and have more experience replacing gear I installed and worked with for long stretches of my career, I have started to appreciate ceremony more.

    In the last 15-ish years I've taken to stashing notes in and around hardware I've installed. I write the date, an anecdote about the weather or the news, and my name. It has been nice to find these notes years later, when I'm lucky enough to be one retiring the gear. I hope, when other people have retired gear I've installed, they get a little kick out of seeing a voice from the past.

  • by classichasclass on 4/26/25, 9:48 PM

    VAX power really did make big leaps from from generation to generation. The 11/750 they started with got about 0.65 VUPs and the VAXstation 3200 they ended with topped out at 2.8, over four times faster. The VAXstation 3100 M76 here, about 18 months later, makes another big jump to 7.6.

  • by dredmorbius on 4/27/25, 3:30 AM

    Out of curiosity I looked up a similar-vintage uni host of similar vintage. Latest online evidence I can find dates to the early aughts.

    Is there any reliable way of finding a last-effective date for a given hostname?

    In related news, many of the services once offered through a locally-administered host are now provided by ... large commercial platforms. Time has moved on, it seems.

  • by jmclnx on 4/26/25, 9:50 PM

    >Path: agate!agateway!CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU!CLIFF

    Looks like the email was sent/received via UUCP or hit one UUCP path.

  • by bagatelle on 4/27/25, 2:43 AM

    I found this earlier this year when researching for a school presentation - it was a joy to read, but sadly did not help me much with my research! I was trying to find some code supposedly hosted on Ucbvax from a research paper. I appreciated the humor in its passing though, and if I ever take an important server down I would love to do a ceremony like this.