Where to get a Vax or microvax

[Ian S. King]

It's not just a matter of size, but also of maintenance.  Tony says, I have
the docs, I can maintain it - but do you want to chase down a logic defect
among a gazillion small- and medium-scale integration ICs?  And the bus
connections?  And the wire wrap?  And the microcode?  (I have done this.)

After restoring the VAX-11/780-5 at the Living Computer Museum and running
it for some time, we moved it to a new home.  It took several days to get
it running again, reseating board, ensuring that power connections were
tight and secure - dealing with a creaky old machine that was, in truth,
once a creaky new machine.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a VAX-11/780 to be a 'bookend'
system next to my VAX 6000-660.  I would love to win the lottery so I could
afford the space, the power, and the time.  But after I fantasize a bit
about that, I go fire up a VAXstation, or my VAX 4000/300, or the SIMH
session I have running on OpenBSD on a G4 iBook (because I can).

Yes, start off small, and if the bug bites you, swing for the fences!
IMHO, YMMV, MOUSE -- Ian

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:17 AM, devin davison <lyokoboy0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ive got a large sgi altix 350 machine running here almost 24/7, uses quite
> a bit of power. Rivals the 2 air conditioners on power consumption. Power
> is not an issue, if i do get something bigger then ill just run the altix
> less and power up the vax. New house has an air conditioned office in the
> garage, now would be the best time to get something big i think, but if it
> is not close it will have to be shipped which would be costly. Maybe ill
> start off small...
>



-- 
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu>

Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org>
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org>

University of Washington

There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."