Vintage computing has��emerged��as a fascinating new phenomenon. Microcomputing began in the 1970’s, over 50 years ago, and what was once the��cutting edge��of technology has now become part of our shared technological heritage. In the early years, few imagined that these machines would one day be historically significant. When they became obsolete, many were simply recycled or discarded; whether they were seen as important or as junk often depended entirely on perspective.��

Some individuals��had the foresight to preserve notable computers rather than recycle them. Their efforts helped lay the groundwork for today’s renewed appreciation of computing history. As many of these early systems reach the half-century mark, they are increasingly recognized as milestones that shaped our digital world, collected, preserved, and celebrated for their role in pushing the industry forward.��

One such local enthusiast spent his career working with microcomputers and had the rare opportunity to��witness��the��entire��evolution of personal computing firsthand. Rather than discarding notable systems as they became obsolete, he��‘rescued’��them, recognizing their historical value. That individual was Dr. Arlen Michaels.��

As Dr. Michaels described it:��

Dr. Arlen Michaels speech at the Open House

“…the collection includes��nearly one��hundred diverse examples of desktop, industrial, and portable microcomputers. No, this is not an uninteresting pile of rusting PCs. Many items date from the earliest,��very creative,��very diverse��period of microcomputer evolution, namely from the pre-PC 1970s to the early 1990s. They often foreshadow what was yet to come. Many were designed and manufactured by small, short-lived companies��–��a few based in Ottawa, in fact��–��and are now exceedingly rare. Most still function. They are true living fossils.”��

Dr. Michaels contacted �Ӱ�ԭ�� University’s School of Computer Science to donate his��entire collection��to the��school.

Left to right: Dr. Michel Barbeau, Dr. Arlen Michaels, Dr. J-P Corriveau, Andrew Miles, Dr. Anil Maheshwari (at the back)

“The first time we visited Arlen’s house,��dozens��of boxes,��monitors��and computers��were��stacked six feet high along both sides of his basement. A narrow path wound through the space like a maze, each box filled with��equipment, manuals, and software. Many were simple cardboard produce boxes, but inside them were remarkable vintage computing treasures,” noted Andrew Miles, Senior Systems Administrator from��the School of Computer Science.��

Over the course of two years, the��school��undertook the careful and deliberate task of��relocating��his extraordinary lifelong collection of vintage computers to �Ӱ�ԭ�� University. What began as a donation has grown into a living resource, one that students, faculty, staff, and visitors can explore, learn from, and appreciate firsthand.��

Many of the systems remain fully operational, a testament both to their original engineering and to the care they have received. The collection has also inspired the formation of a grassroots initiative: �Ӱ�ԭ�� Vintage Computing (CVC), a dedicated group committed to using, displaying, testing, repairing, and maintaining these historic systems. Their work ensures that the collection is not simply preserved but actively engaged as a resource.

Today, a significant portion of the collection is showcased in the Vintage Computing Display and in recognition of this remarkable contribution, the school has named the exhibit “Arlen’s Evolution of Microcomputing.” It stands out as an acknowledgment to Dr Michaels and his message that preserving technological history enriches the future of innovation.

Fifty years of computing spans multiple generations, and as an earlier generation of technologists retires, so do their vintage computer collection.��This was the case with our second generous donor, Grant Bechthold Jr., whose father was a “rocket scientist” at Canada’s National Research Council and one of the earliest adopters of personal computing in the Ottawa region.��

Grant Bechthold Sr. worked with one of the first personal computers available locally, produced by the Ottawa-based company NABU, which released the NABU 1100, a��networked personal computer that briefly captured the imagination of early adopters.��

Along with this piece of Ottawa computing history, Grant Jr. also donated what is widely regarded as one of the most historically significant microcomputers ever built: the MITS Altair 8800. Introduced in 1975, the Altair 8800 is often credited with igniting the personal computer revolution. Sold as an affordable kit built around the Intel 8080 processor, it inspired a generation of computer enthusiasts and helped launch the modern era of personal computing. The School of Computer Science recognized Grant’s incredible donation during their Open House with a ‘surprise computer reveal’.

With the redesign of its tutorial laboratory, the School of Computer Science has created a space where the vintage computing collection is a natural and inspiring feature. The collection has grown to include more than 200 vintage computers, along with software, accessories, and computing artefacts. The lab’s Open House celebrates both the official opening of �Ӱ�ԭ��’s vintage computing display and the generous contributions of Arlen and Grant, whose support helped make it possible.��

Links:

• �Ӱ�ԭ�� University Vintage Computing
• HP4155: SCS Tutorial Lab

One of the most significant challenges in this process is moving the school’s server room facility.��This infrastructure supports departmental servers, specialized research equipment, and the OpenStack cloud platform used by the school.��

SCS server room relocation led by Andrew Pullin

The stakes are high. More than 2,000 undergraduate students rely on the OpenStack cloud for course assignments and laboratory work, with usage peaking during the fall and winter academic terms. At the same time, graduate students and researchers depend on the system around the clock to run Computer Science and Data Science experiments, simulations, and long-running computational workloads.��

This creates��a difficult question:��

• How do you relocate a critical server facility in the middle of the winter term while supporting more than 2,000 students, faculty, and staff who depend on it 24/7, when the infrastructure runs one of the most complex cloud platforms ever created: OpenStack?

The School of Computer Science partnered with the university’s Information Technology Services (ITS), which offered temporary server space in the �Ӱ�ԭ�� Library to host the infrastructure during the renovation.��

With a relocation site secured, the team considered two primary strategies for moving the server facility.��

����

Option 1: Full Shutdown and Rapid Relocation��

• Under this approach, the entire server room would be powered down, physically moved to the new location in a single day, and then reassembled and brought back online.��

• The advantage of this strategy is speed. In the best-case scenario, the move could be completed within a day, resulting in only one to two days of downtime for users.��

• However, the risks were significant. If multiple servers��failed to��start after the move, or if a critical infrastructure node��encountered��problems, the entire OpenStack environment could remain offline for an extended period. In a worst-case scenario, service outages could stretch into��days��or even weeks, while systems were repaired and reconfigured.��

����

Option 2: Live Migration and Incremental Relocation��

• ��The second��option��involved a slower, more deliberate process: migrating servers individually while gradually��relocating��hardware to the new facility.��

• Although this approach would take��considerably longer, it offered a key advantage. Each server could be handled carefully and��validated��before proceeding to the��next. If a problem occurred, it would affect only a single system rather than the entire infrastructure.��

• This incremental strategy significantly reduced the risk of a prolonged outage and ensured the OpenStack cloud could remain��operational��throughout the relocation.��

��

The SCS technical staff��ultimately chose��this incremental strategy. The effort was led by��Andrew Pullin, who coordinated the migration plan and oversaw the relocation process.

Before any hardware was moved, the team first ensured the necessary network infrastructure was in place. The SCS subnet was extended between the Herzberg Building and the �Ӱ�ԭ�� Library, effectively spanning both locations. Because the OpenStack cloud requires its infrastructure nodes to��reside��on the same subnet, this network configuration was critical.��

With the subnet extended across both buildings, OpenStack could treat servers��located��in Herzberg and those in the library as part of the same environment, regardless of the physical distance between them. This allowed systems to be��relocated��gradually while��remaining��fully integrated with the existing cloud infrastructure.��

SCS tech staff: Karim Ismail and Andrew Pullin configuring a GPU server

The OpenStack environment runs on a virtualized cloud infrastructure, where workloads exist as server images rather than being tied to specific physical machines. This architecture proved to be a major advantage during��the relocation.��

Virtual machine images could be migrated to the library facility ahead of the physical move.��Each night, servers in��Herzberg��copied their images to the library location.��By morning, once the workloads had successfully migrated, the now-vacant physical server in Herzberg could be safely powered down, removed, and transported to the new facility.��

This approach significantly reduced risk. If an issue occurred during migration, it would affect only a single server rather than the entire cloud environment, allowing problems to be isolated and resolved without disrupting the broader system.��

Winter, however, introduced an entirely different challenge.��

This year Ottawa experienced a particularly harsh and snowy winter, so much so that the Rideau Canal remained open for��56 days��of skating��(that’s unusually long). Moving more than 55 servers across campus in freezing conditions is not a trivial task.��

Fortunately, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University has a unique advantage: its extensive underground tunnel system.��

The Supervisor of Operations at ITS, John MacGillivray, helped coordinate the move using the golf cart and trailer through the �Ӱ�ԭ�� tunnels. Moving the equipment in small batches allowed the team to safely relocate servers between buildings without exposing them to the winter weather. What might have been a logistical nightmare outdoors instead became an efficient relocation route beneath the campus.

Over the course of less than two months,��Andrew Pullin and the SCS technical team��successfully��migrated��the entire environment during the middle of the winter academic term. The move included:��

• 4 racks of equipment
• 25 compute nodes��totaling��1,672 CPU cores��
• 24 GPU servers��containing��138 GPUs��
• The full��OpenStack infrastructure stack��
• Supporting��networking and storage systems��

In the end, like magic, the SCS cloud was successfully relocated across campus in the middle of the winter term, transparent to end users, who continued their work without ever realising the servers themselves had physically moved across campus.

Server room relocation timelapse: front and back of each of the 4 racks

Modern network administration and virtualization technologies��made��this complex relocation possible.��

Of course, there is one small catch.��

When the renovations are finished…��everything will have to be moved back.

Computers with unified memory architecture feature a single shared pool of memory used by both the CPU and GPU, unlike traditional systems that have separate RAM and VRAM (see figure 1 & 2). This unified design, popularised by Apple’s M series chips, enables higher efficiency, reduced latency, and faster data transfer since the CPU and GPU work with the same memory space therefore don’t need to travel using the overhead of the bus.

Consider the CPU generations categorised as follows:

• 1st generation – 4-bit CPU
• 2nd generation – 8-bit CPU
• 3rd generation – 16-bit CPU
• 4th generation – 32-bit CPU
• 5th generation – 64-bit CPU
• 6th generation – multi-core CPU
• 7th generation – unified memory CPU

Unified memory is the next generation CPU and it will change the tech landscape. Now there will be an accessible alternative to high VRAM GPU’s. This is what it means: you can use your computer main memory as graphics memory. Is this a big deal? Yes it is.Take the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU it has 96 GB of VRAM and at the time of this article costs $12k CAD. 128GB (2 x 64GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6400 (PC5 51200) Desktop Memory costs $1,200 CAD. Do the Math, this GPU is 10x more expensive.

Unified memory RAM uses DDR4 or DDR5 shared between CPU and GPU. Its bandwidth can reach around 200-800 GB/s. In contrast, dedicated GPU memory is optimized for very high bandwidth and low latency with wide interfaces 128-512 bits or more. Typical GPU VRAM bandwidth exceeds 500 GB/s, sometimes over 1 TB/s, and is directly connected to the GPU chip with minimal latency to feed thousands of CUDA cores efficiently. This difference alone can amount to a speed difference of a factor of 3-5. At this time GPU’s are faster than a unified memory GPU.

Another new development in CPU design are the use of NPU’s – Neural Processing Unit that accelerate neural networking operations part of the SoC design. These are marketed as AI CPU’s and you will be seeing more and more of them. They will help speed up the tasks performed by digital assistants like Siri or Alexa and facial recognition for secure login and lots more.

Unified memory allows AI accelerators and processors to utilise the full RAM dynamically, which is beneficial for tasks like machine learning and LLM (Large Language Model) inference. The implications are you can use your computer’s main memory as VRAM and this is the biggest benefit of a unified memory PC. In a day and age where large VRAM GPU’s are inaccessible, unified memory PC’s give you an accessible option to run large parameter LLM’s.

Here are some notable unified memory computers:

• Apple M-chip computers lead this tech. A MAC mini can cost you less than $1k CAD.
• NVIDIA DGX Spark is the famous ARM + GPU “AI Supercomputer on your desk” and that will set you back more than $6,000 CAD.
• AMD best iGPU at this time is the Radeon 890M and benchmark’s similar to an NVIDIA GTX 1070 GPU. Look for unified PC’s with AMD Ryzen AI 9 tech inside.
• Minisforum has combined the ARM CPU with their MS-R1 line of mini-PC’s. You heard that right ARM for PC – not Intel or AMD but ARM.�� Advertised as “the first ARM mini-PC with a BIOS”. Interestingly the first ARM based PC was the Acorn Archimedes 305 released 40 years ago.

Terms used

• Unified memory – CPU and GPU share a single unified pool of memory
• SoC – System on Chip. Consolidates the key components of a computer or electronic system onto a single microchip.
• iGPU – integrated Graphics or graphics on the same die as a CPU
• VRAM – Video Random Access Memory is a type of dedicated memory used specifically by a graphics processing unit (GPU).
• NPU – Neural Processing Unit are specialized cores focused on accelerating neural network operations and commonly integrated into SoCs.

Author:��Andrew Miles, Sr System Administrator, School of Computer Science, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

Your service provider access point/router will provide ethernet ports that you can connect to your computer. Most new computers or laptop ethernet have speeds up to 2.5 Gbps. Choosing the right ethernet cable is important. Ethernet cables also called RJ45 cables are rated for speed and distance/length:

• Cat 5 – speeds up to 100 Mbps
• Cat 5a – speeds up to 1 Gbps
• Cat 6 – Up to 10 Gbps at shorter distances (55 meters or 180 feet) and 1 Gbps at full length (100 meters or 328 feet)
• Cat 6a – “Augmented” Cat6, supporting 10 Gbps speeds up to 100 meters
• Cat 7 – Designed for data centers, supporting up to 40 Gbps at shorter distances.
• Cat 8 – The latest standard (2025), offering up to 40 Gbps speeds

If you want to achieve reliable speeds of 3 Gbps that your service provider gives you then I would recommend:

• Cat 6a: If you need consistent 3 Gbps speeds over short or longer distances and its ideal for future-proofing your network

You could also use Cat 8 cables but for home use that would be overkill. Cat 7 uses a proprietary GG45 connector, its backwards compatible with RJ45 but not all networking equipment work well with Cat 7. Bottom line, if you want to get the highest speed ethernet possible at home with the fewest problems choose ethernet (RJ45) Cat 6a or Cat 8 cables from a reputable supplier.

Author:��Andrew Miles, Sr System Administrator, School of Computer Science, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

• the RDNA 3.5 architecture
• 16 compute units
• 16 ray tracing cores
• 1024 shaders running at up to 2,900 MHz
• AI image generation and other modern features are supported.

Benchmarks are comparable to the legendary GTX 1650 which was the best value GPU on the market back in 2020. However modest it is a big step up for PC integrated graphics and are good for medium-duty graphics applications.

Apple are the leaders when it comes to integrated graphics with their M-series chips, only GPU’s can outperform them. AMD and Intel historically have made integrated graphics but not for graphics intensive applications. Radeon 890M integrated graphics have these advantages:

• Excellent for a mini or small form factor PC
• Radeon 890M only uses TDP of 15 watts of power
• can drive up to 4 monitors
• can play 2024 AAA games at 1080p on low settings

Author:��Andrew Miles, Sr System Administrator, School of Computer Science, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

WebP is a newer format developed by Google that is gaining popularity due to the fact of having the best of both PNG and JPEG formats. Webp file format features are:

• Smaller file sizes compared to JPEG and PNG
• Support for both lossy and lossless compression
• Transparency and animation features
• Open and free file format

While not as widely used as the top formats, WebP is increasingly adopted for its performance benefits, especially in web applications.

Author:��Andrew Miles, Sr System Administrator, School of Computer Science, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

Besides impacting PuTTY, it also affects other products that incorporate a vulnerable version:

• FileZilla (3.24.1 – 3.66.5)
• WinSCP (5.9.5 – 6.3.2)
• TortoiseGit (2.4.0.2 – 2.15.0)
• TortoiseSVN (1.10.0 – 1.14.6)

The fix is to:

1. upgrade the software to the latest version
2. delete your current private key.

References:

��

Summary��

Your eyes are important so it goes without saying that your monitor is crucial in minimising eye strain.��

• Resolution – Full HD (1080p) is baseline find the resolution that best suits you. Try a higher resolution monitor and see if that works for you?��
• TÜV Rheinland-certification is a standard that makes sure the refresh rate is adequate as well as minimising blue light emissions��
• DCI-P3 standard will gives you an excellent colour gamut��
• Ambient light sensor is a great feature ��
• Matching light bar that mounts on your monitor can give you better ambient lighting
• Nice software features are ePaper mode, eye reminder, screen dimming, and brightness presets��
• IPS or QD-OLED panels are excellent��
• Make sure your stand is adjustable and can tilt and curved monitors can be beneficial to your eyes��
• Recommended desktop monitor sizes are 24” – 32” ��

Author: Andrew Miles, Sr System Administrator, School of Computer Science, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

• The school of Computer Science has five undergraduate computer labs that BCS students can use in the Herzberg building: SCS Computer Labs��
• HP3115 and HP4115 can be used as study space and group work by anyone registered in a COMP course. COMP students can also use HP4155 when its free.��
• Third year and above COMP students can use the Gaming Lab HP5151 for group work or study space��
• SCS has a linux network that has been in operation for more than 20 years. Any COMP student can create an account and use it. You can even create an old-school personal website.��
• The CCSS lounge is located in HP4135 – they welcome students and questions for just about anything computer science related

Step 1: Install vscode
Step 2: Install Remote-SSH Extension
Step 3: Create Remote-SSH Connection
Step 4: Open Folder on Remote Server
Step 5: Open a terminal, edit some code, run some code!
Troubleshooting: Failed Login
Troubleshooting: Disk Full

In addition to these instructions, you can find a video tutorial here:

Step 1: Install vscode

The first thing you need to do is install vscode on your local device (person computer). We won’t go into the details of installing it here as it varies depending on your device (Linux, Windows, iOS). The install is usually straight-forward.
The vscode download for various platforms can be found here:

Step 2: Install Remote-SSH Extension

vscode cannot make remote connections initially. The Remote-SSH extension is required

1. Open vscode and click on the Extensions panel button (see Red Box in the image below)
   
2. Click on the extension search bar (see Red Box in the image below) and start typing remote ssh.
   The Remote – SSH extension should appear (see Green Box in the image below).
   Click on the Install button (see Purple Box in the image below).
   

Step 3: Create Remote-SSH Connection

1. A new panel button called Remote Explorer should appear – you may have to close and reopen vscode (see Red Box in the image below). Click on the Remote Explorer button.
   Expand the tree down until you see the SSH branch (see Green Box in the image below).
   Click on the plus (+) button to begin adding a new SSH connection (see Purple Box in the image below).
   
2. In the SSH Connection box that opens (see Red Box in the image below)
   Enter ssh student@134.117.130.199 – replacing the IP with you own 134.117.#.# IP address
   
3. It will ask you to save the connection information to an ssh config file. The default one will vary depending on what operating system you are running. In general you can select the first option (see Red Box in the image below)
   
4. A pop-up will appear saying the host was added. If you want, you can manually modify the ssh config file by clicking Open Config. However, this is not required, and in this case we will just click Connect (see Red Box in the image below)
   
5. You will then be prompted for the password for the student account (see Red Box in the image below).
   
6. It will then show a pop-up on the bottom right showing the vscode-server being added to the remote account. This make take a few moments to complete.
   
7. And that should complete adding the connection. A new empty vscode workspace should open that is connected to that remote server.

Step 4: Open Folder on Remote Server

1. Now that the vscode workspace is connected to the remote server, we need to open a folder. Click the Explorer navigation button (see Red Box in the image below) and click Open Folder (see Green Box in the image below)
   
2. The open folder search box will automatically start in the home directory (/home/student) of the student account, so simply click OK (see Red Box in the image below) unless you want to open a specific sub-folder.
   
3. You will again be asked to enter the password for the student account (see Red Box in the image below)
   
4. A window will pop up asking if you trust the authors of files in this folder. If a check box is shown to trust all files in the folder ‘student’, check it (see Red Box in the image below), although this may not appear in all cases. Click Yes, I trust the authors (see Green Box in the image below)
   
5. The Explorer view will now show all of the files and folders in the student account home directory (see Red Box in the image below).
   NOTE: The exact content of the directory will vary depending on which course image you are connecting
   

Step 5: Open a terminal, edit some code, run some code!

1. It can be convenient to open a terminal window so we can run commands just like we would if we had ssh’d into the system. You can open a terminal window in many ways. Here are three easy ones:
   • With the Ctrl + ` (Ctrl + backtick) hot key
   • By right-clicking on any file or folder in the student home directory and clicking Open in Integrated Terminal
   • By clicking on any file or folder in the student home directory, and going to the View menu and click Terminal

   Either of these actions will open a terminal, as seen in the Red Box in the image below
   

2. Next, we can open a file to edit with vscode. In the example below, we have a folder called assignment-code, with a python file called hello-world.py (see Red Box in the image below). If you click on the hello-world.py file, it will open the file in the workspace so you can edit it (see Green Box in the image below).
   NOTE: If this is the first time you have edited a python file, vscode may helpfully offer to install a python extension to help with you python coding (see Purple Box in the image below). It will often do this for any programming language that you open for the first time. It is up to you to decide if you want this extension. In some cases, your instructor may ask that you install specific extensions with certainly capabilities. So make sure to check your course notes.
   
3. We can use the terminal window to conveniently run commands. In this example, we manually run the python program hello-world.py.
   • First we cd assignment-code to get into the assignment directory (see Red Box in the image below)
   • Then we enter ls to list the files and make sure we see the hello-world.py file (see Green Box in the image below)
   • Then we run the python file with python3 hello-world.py and we see the output (it prints Hello, world!”) (see Purple Box in the image below)
     NOTE: The commands you run to execute code will vary, this is just one example of a possible way of running a python file

   

Troubleshooting: Failed Login

vscode failed logins are most often caused by two things:

1. New Openstack Instance with Expired Password: New openstack instances have a default username and password, and the password is expired and must be changed. This cannot be done through the vscode remote connection interface, so you must use a different Connection Tool to connect to your instance for the first time. Once you have set a new password, you can use vscode normally.
2. Instance Disk Full: If an instance’s disk drive fills up, it will not be possible to login with vscode as the tool needs to setup temporary files to initialize. The indicator of this problem is (usually): when you enter the password, vscode will hang, sometimes showing an installing vscode server message that never goes away. If you see that behavior, it is likely that the disk is full. You must login with another Connection Tool, free up some disk space, and then return to using vscode.

Troubleshooting: Disk Full

vscode installs a lot of libraries and support tools to make you coding easier. It also stores a cache of all the original downloaded installers, which it keeps even after the tool has been successfully added to vscode. It is quite common for all of this to quickly fill an openstack instance’s disk drive. Check with your course instructor for instructions on how to clear the vscode cache as it can vary.