phobos.cs.unibuc.ro

• Links
• What is Phobos?
• Why Phobos?
• Where is Phobos?
• Questions? Comments?
• Quality Statement and Unlimited Warranty

Links

Catalin's Web page: visit it on CS Dept's Web Server or here, on Phobos.

Ultimul concurs de programare local. (Latest local programming contest.)

Probleme de logica si programare propuse saptaminal de profesorul Adrian Atanasiu

Look here for links to pages of other Phobos-related individuals, or send e-mail to the address at the bottom of this page for infomation about Web page hosting on this server.

What is Phobos?

Phobos is our new computer. It was built from spare components brought by Cristi Grozea, Catalin Voinescu and Dan Pepelea, inside a case that belonged to an old, non-functional 286 computer.

The contributions to the "creation" of Phobos are as follow:

• Cristi Grozea
  • 16 Megabytes Fast-Page Mode DRAM (2×8 Mb SIMMs)
  • Quantum Bigfoot 2.5 Gigabytes Harddisk Drive
  • 14400 bps Internal Fax-Modem Card (used only for tests--no phone line)
  • CPU Heatsink and Fan assembly
• Catalin Voinescu
  • Intel Pentium 90 MHz CPU
  • PCI Motherboard with Intel Chipset, without integrated EIDE interface
  • Seagate 127 Megabytes Harddisk Drive
  • ISA I/O Card: IDE HDC, FDC, 2 Serial Ports, 1 Parallel Port, 1 Game Port
  • A dozen screws
• Dan Pepelea
  • Mitsumi 101-Key US-Layout Keyboard (best reasonably-priced keyboard)
  • Sunshine 3-Button Mouse (horrible!)
• Items "inherited" from older computers
  • Desktop Case with 200 Watts Power Supply (impossible to add or remove memory without removing the power supply first, only one three-inch bay and three five-inch bays, including those for floppies)
  • Standard VGA 14" Color Monitor (not Low Radiation, does not support 800×600)
  • ISA (8-bit) 256k SVGA Card, as old as Moses, taken from a pre-XT IBM-PC compatible with 8086 at 4.77 MHz
  • ISA (16-bit) AMD Lance Network Card, 10 Mbps Ethernet, UTP only
  • ISA (8-bit) Compex ENET/U Network Card, 10 Mbps Ethernet, BNC only (needed to edit kernel sources to use it)
  • Miscelaneous: Power Cord, IDE and Floppy Ribbon Cables

Phobos is running Slackware Linux 3.4, kernel 2.0.38 ; the HTTP daemon is Apache 1.2.

Why Phobos?

The computer is named Phobos for no particular reason, except that it must have a name.

We started with an attempt to get a minimal system to run Linux (or another true OS) in order to use it as a good router (at that time, we needed either Proxy ARP or IP Masquerading; Linux has them both). The first computer to be called Phobos was, in fact, a PS/2 Model 65 SX, i. e. a 386sx running at 16 MHz which we used as a Novell Netware file server, and thus we were unable to use it as a router (it had Microchannel bus and only one network card and we had no way to get another network card for it; besides, Novell Netware 3.11 is unable to understand netmasks in a Class C network, anyway); that server was replaced by one more suited for the job and the name Phobos was re-used for the new server: a 486 DX 33 MHz CPU with 8 Mb RAM and a total of 160 Mb HDD, which was soon upgraded to the current configuration. The last item to arrive was the video card, replacing an old 8-bit 256k SVGA card taken from an 8086 PC (pre-XT). We hope to acquire a PCI EIDE controller (or a motherboard with an embedded EIDE controller) which would allow us to make full use of the data transfer rate capability of the harddisk.

Another reason for building and maintaining this computer: it's fun.

Where is Phobos?

It is on the right side of the desk near the window, in room 221 B of the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Bucharest, 14 Academiei Street, Bucharest, Romania. [To do: Go to the Astronomical Observatory and ask them the precise geographical coordinates of the place, including the altitude. Write the "missile address" here.]

As far as the network is concerned, it is directly connected to the backbone of the Faculty of Mathematics, which, in turn, is connected via a cable modem to the Politechnic Univeristy of Bucharest, which gets connected through a 256kbps satelite link.

Phobos is part of the cs.unibuc.ro domain, which shares a Class C network address with the math.unibuc.ro domain. The IP address of Phobos used to be 193.226.51.7. Now it is 193.226.51.110

Questions? Comments?

Please feel free to send any questions or comments related to Phobos or this Web site to: catalin@phobos.cs.unibuc.ro. Please be so kind as to start the subject of the message with the word Phobos, so that my (soon to be) automatic mail sorter will be able to treat your message with priority.

Quality Statement and Unlimited Warranty

This Web Server is fed with the purest and richest wild electrons available, harvested by beautiful young virgin maidens from the deepest Amazonian rainforest where no man ever set foot, selected and processed especially for you by highly-trained professionals, using a secret recipe continuously improved over many centuries of hard and dedicated labor.

Moreover, as required by the Laws of Physics, all electrons flowing through this Web Server are identical in all respects and cannot be distinguished one from another by any means; any claim to the contrary is void, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.