RFC 416

ARC System Will Be Unavailable for Use During Thanksgiving Week

📅 published November 1972, from ietf

RFC 416: The ARC System Will Be Unavailable for Thanksgiving Week 🦃🍓

okay bestie, title block first 💅

  • Network Working Group
  • Author: James C. Norton (SRI-ARC) 🎀
  • Request for Comments: #416
  • NIC number: 12542
  • Date: 7-NOV-72 📅

the original doesn't list an obsoletes, updates, or category field, so there's nothing to report there ✨

The ARC PDP-10 system is going offline for ARC and NIC users from Friday, November 17 (6:00 pm PST) through Sunday, November 26 (10:00 pm PST) 🙈 That's giving our hardware team a full nine days to work on equipment, and users only lose three SRI working days: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Lowkey a very good trade 💖

This is the Network Information Center's notice to its network users about the schedule 📣

Also, starting about 6 November, a login message will go out to all users showing the schedule 🧚 It'll read something like this:

THE ARC/NIC PDP-10 SYSTEM WILL BE UNAVAILABLE FOR USE FROM FRIDAY NOV 17 (6:00 pm PST) THRU SUNDAY NOV 26 (10:00 pm PST) FOR MAJOR HARDWARE WORK AS OUTLINED IN (12542,).

For the hardware nerds 🤓 here's what the facility work during this period includes:

  • Removal of the Bryant disk, Bryant disk controller and Cybernex drum-disk interference. 💀
  • Moving the Tasker display system and DEC dispack (old and new) equipment to their new locations. 🚚
  • Having Bryant people run a combination drum maintenance and training session to teach ARC people how to change heads and clean the drum. 🧹
  • Redoing the power cabling to the drum. ⚡
  • Putting the new signal cable in between drum and controller. 🔌
  • Debugging the parity checker. 🐛
  • Making a check of all main signal levels in XCORE. 📶
  • Debugging the new cable from the parity checker to XCORE. 🔧
  • Wiring the parity bit through the Cybernex XCORE interface. 🧵
  • Getting any necessary power wiring done. 🔋
  • Building a wall for the next dispack location. 🧱
This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry into the online RFC archives by BBN Corp. under the direction of Alex McKenzie, 1/97. 🫶 Huge thanks to them for keeping this old gem alive!
📦 where this page comes from