RMweb

[Hayfield]

I have not been able to open RMweb for a second day, I know that for weeks they have had performance issues, and seen to remember someone saying they may move to a new host, is this what is happening ?

 

[John S]

ON their web page
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/

is the following:

RMweb is currently unavailable​

RMweb will return once our migration has been completed.
We apologise for the loss of service but we are working hard behind the scenes.
Further updates will be issued here when we have a better idea of timescales.
Please don't try and sign in as your details are not yet available


John S from 33820 St Ciers sur Gironde

 

[Martin Wynne]

@Hayfield

Hi John,

RMweb are having major problems with their current hosting provider. There are updates on the situation at:

https://www.facebook.com/rmwebupdates

I believe they have plans to move to a different host, but they are not there yet. It is such a massive web site that there will likely be further disruption when they do finally move.

Warners haven't made life easier for Andy York by insisting on such intrusive advertising on there, to pay for the hosting.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Martin Wynne]

ON their web page
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/

is the following:

RMweb is currently unavailable​

RMweb will return once our migration has been completed.
We apologise for the loss of service but we are working hard behind the scenes.
Further updates will be issued here when we have a better idea of timescales.
Please don't try and sign in as your details are not yet available


John S from 33820 St Ciers sur Gironde

Thanks John, the situation changed while I was writing my previous post. It seems they have brought the migration forward urgently.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Hayfield]

Being a bit of a numpty as far as tech subjects are, could anyone explain please as to what has/is happening with RMweb

I understand there have been issues for some time with speed issues and I think I am correct in thinking RMweb is changing its host at some future point. The server updates seem quiet for days and explain little

 

[Martin Wynne]

Being a bit of a numpty as far as tech subjects are, could anyone explain please as to what has/is happening with RMweb

I understand there have been issues for some time with speed issues and I think I am correct in thinking RMweb is changing its host at some future point. The server updates seem quiet for days and explain little

@Hayfield

Hi John,

Andy York posted a few minutes ago: "We will be back as big and bad as ever as soon as we can."

RMweb has been struggling for some time with a poorly-performing hosting provider. They were in the process of finding a new provider when the site crashed again recently. It seems that instead of fixing it, the existing provider wrecked it. The move to a new provider was therefore brought forward urgently and is currently in process.

With such a massive amount of data, migrating everything to a new provider and getting it all working takes time, likely several days. It's especially difficult if the existing provider is being uncooperative.

Judging from the changed IP address for rmweb.co.uk they have moved to CloudFront on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for their content delivery:

https://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/

AWS powers great swathes of the internet worldwide and is regarded as fast and reliable, so hopefully the new RMweb should be working fine. Of course they are still lumbered with the Invision forum software, about which the least said the better. And not improved by having a mass of intrusive advertising inflicted on them by Warners to pay for it all.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Hayfield]

I see there has been an update issued this morning from Andy York

RMweb is hoping to restart again either later today or tomorrow, also the message on the link has changed

 

[Martin Wynne]

.
It's back:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/160-handbuilt-track-amp-templot/

Full report:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/171078-rmweb-site-outage-and-change-of-hosting-april-2022/

Martin.

 

[Stephen Freeman]

Sort of - no images from 2021 and there are some formatting issues

 

[Martin Wynne]

.
RMweb is back up and running.

But if you have previously posted a link to any RMweb topic or images or other content, on Templot Club or other forums, or in emails, or on your own web pages, those links are now failing.

The reason is that RMweb has moved from the /community folder to the domain root.

Link URLs can be fixed by editing the /community part out of the URL.

In due course this issue should be fixed by RMweb, but it's not done yet.

I shall attempt to run a script to repair all the RMweb links here on Templot Club, but it will take some time. If you find a broken link in the current topics or in the old forum Archive, please let me know.

In addition, most of the images uploaded to RMweb in the last year have been lost by the previous hosting provider -- and that's no fault of RMweb. If they were yours you will need to upload them again into your RMweb posts.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Charles Orr]

I am amazed at the statement that the previous host of RMWeb thought that it was was good practice to back up a RAID disk system on the same RAID system.

When I was working I had responsiblity for backing up a large RAID 5 disk system holding a very large educational SQL database.
It was done twice a day onto two completely separate systems.

RAID 5 provides data recovery if 1 disk fails but not if 2 (or more) fail at the same time.

 

[Rob Manchester]

We used two data centres with each backing up the other. They each had redundant power supplies on all systems and diesel generators. It is rather expensiveto go to these lengths though.

Rob

 

[Martin Wynne]

I have a few rolls of unpunched paper tape, if anyone is running short.

Martin.

 

[AndyB]

I have a few rolls of unpunched paper tape, if anyone is running short.

Martin.

Five hole I assume.

I can trade you some fan-fold printer paper if you are short.

 

[AndyB]

I'm afraid I'm all out of punched cards.

 

[Martin Wynne]

I'm afraid I'm all out of punched cards.

I have a few if you are desperate.

 

[Rob Manchester]

Anybody willing to punch out 25,000 chads from the cards and I can build some brick walls for one of my layouts. It beats platikard brick sheets anyday.

A while back somebody did actually sell bags of these on ebay.....

Rob

 

[Martin Wynne]

A while back somebody did actually sell bags of these on ebay.....

Hi Rob,

I have a bag of them -- collected the hard way, not from ebay.

From memory they are nearer to S scale than 4mm. I will go and measure them. Not sure there is 25,000 though.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[Martin Wynne]

@Rob Manchester

Hi Rob,

I've got half a pound of chads:

Actually 260 grams.

Average 3.25mm x 1.45mm x 0.16mm.

That's near 1/8" x 1/16" so 128 per square inch or 198,400 per square metre.

0.16mm card is about 125gsm (grams per square metre).

So I have 260 / 125 = 2.08 square metres of chads.

2.08 x 198,400 = 412,672 chads.

I can probably spare you 25,000.

Damn, I've dropped 3 on the carpet.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[AndyB]

This one actually booted from eight hole tape. I made the tape reader and the pinch-wheel was from a slot-racing car

Apart from an Intel 4kB ram card it was all wire-wrapped and hand built by yours truly. I'm pretty sure it was the first fully operational 8080 in the UK and quite possibly the World. Interrupts did not work! I reported the problem to Intel and after a couple of weeks they came back and said they were revising the data sheet. The new version included a mysterious external NAND gate

 

[Rob Manchester]

@Rob Manchester

Hi Rob,

I've got half a pound of chads:

View attachment 3374

Actually 260 grams.

Average 3.25mm x 1.45mm x 0.16mm.

That's near 1/8" x 1/16" so 128 per square inch or 198,400 per square metre.

0.16mm card is about 125gsm (grams per square metre).

So I have 260 / 125 = 2.08 square metres of chads.

2.08 x 198,400 = 412,672 chads.

I can probably spare you 25,000.

cheers,

Martin.

Hi Martin,
They would all need to be the same colour so I didn't have to paint them ...it is April the 1st tomorrow !

But seriously I do seem to remember the sizing wasn't quite right when I did actually use them and I am not about to add S gauge to my already long list of scales and gauges. Slater's plastikard brick sheets work quite well providing you make sure to lay out the shell of the building to be in whole brick multiples and don't use plastikard for the main inner shell or ( at least with me ) it always warps.

The main question here is why have you got a bag of about 412672 chads ?

Thanks for the interesting insight into your collecting habits...

Rob

 

[Martin Wynne]

The main question here is why have you got a bag of about 412672 chads ?

Collected in 1973 while using a card punch machine, entering IBM assembly language. To be compiled in Birmingham overnight, for use on this computer:

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/system7/images/5407PH04.jpg

Returned next morning on 1" 8-hole paper tape as object code.

Being used to control welding current and timing on one of these:

which didn't have the computer screen or external casing in those days, but otherwise is remarkably unchanged after 50 years.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[AndyB]

There is also a story to go with it. The department prof was boasting that he'd come up with the shortest possible boot loader to be keyed in - ten bytes. That was until I showed him how to knock it down to eight. I don't think he ever quite forgave me

 

[Phil O]

Martin,

Did you have a bigger machine for doing ships anchor chain?

 

[Hayfield]

@Rob Manchester

Hi Rob,

I've got half a pound of chads:

View attachment 3374

Actually 260 grams.

Average 3.25mm x 1.45mm x 0.16mm.

That's near 1/8" x 1/16" so 128 per square inch or 198,400 per square metre.

0.16mm card is about 125gsm (grams per square metre).

So I have 260 / 125 = 2.08 square metres of chads.

2.08 x 198,400 = 412,672 chads.

I can probably spare you 25,000.

Damn, I've dropped 3 on the carpet.

cheers,

Martin.

I think I still have a couple of small self seal bags of chads somewhere

 

[Martin Wynne]

Martin,

Did you have a bigger machine for doing ships anchor chain?

Hi Phil,

Not in my time there, I think the biggest we did was 36mm (bar diameter). I believe anchor chains had been made earlier in the company's history. It was founded on making non-skid tyre chains. By post-war days the bread-and-butter work was 18mm hardened alloy steel chain for the coal mining industry (used on underground scraper conveyors). Tons and tons of that went all over the world -- in the days when the UK economy was based on making things. Nowadays it seems to be based on making sandwiches, judging by the apparent importance of the "hospitality sector".

The larger sizes were flash-welded:

Martin.

 

[Phil O]

Martin,

Very interesting machines, as only the Germans seem to build.