12 Jul
2022
12 Jul
'22
10:58 a.m.
Hello Classic fans,
Recently eBay seller smhelectronics261 posted a very interesting
prototype board: https://www.ebay.com/itm/295087630609
The description is "Dec Digital PRO 350/380 Professional Microvax II
Proto 54-16707 Collectors", and the board art mentions "MICROVAX
SOFTCARD."
Does anyone know anything about this card? Especially curious is the
daughtercard connector: is it just for RAM expansion or is the
daughtercard necessary for card operation?
The photographs are fuzzy, but the more recent chip date I can see is
8536 (on one of the QFPs). This puts the board in the time period of
the MicroVAX II development.
The internal "MicroVAX Business Plan"
(http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/610/memos/Microvax_Business_Plan_Dec83.pdf)
mentions a "Meteor" project (p. 11). It describes Meteor as:
Meteor is Digital's first single-user MicroVAX product. Developed
within Low End Engineering, the product is positioned as a strong
competitor in the low end, technical/scientific and the high end
office/business graphics workstation market. Meteor should be an
effective follow-on product to the Professional Series and high end
VAX/Seahorse workstations. Although not a replacement product per
se, Meteor represents a clear migration path for PRO users upward in
functionality, and for VAX Workstation applications downward to a
lower cost, single user design.
Does anyone know if this board is Meteor?
I'll be bidding on the board, but given how pricey CTI boards have
gotten recently (a DECNA card from the same seller recently sold for
$422.99), I probably won't win. If the winner of the auction reads
this, could they please contact me? I'd like to collect an image of the
boot ROM from the board, if possible.
Thanks.
--Bjoren
12 Jul
12 Jul
12:48 p.m.
Recently eBay seller smhelectronics261 posted a very
interesting
prototype board: https://www.ebay.com/itm/295087630609
The description is "Dec Digital PRO 350/380 Professional Microvax II
Proto 54-16707 Collectors", and the board art mentions "MICROVAX
SOFTCARD."
Well, that is a weird concept. Maybe they were gunning to make the
absolutely slowest Vax system ever, the MV1 just wasn't enough of a
challenge....
Does anyone know anything about this card? Especially
curious is the
daughtercard connector: is it just for RAM expansion or is the
daughtercard necessary for card operation?
Daughtercard almost looks like a Pro memory board, but those were 16 bit
and only 256kw in size if I recall. That's can't be enough to do
anything useful.
I'll be bidding on the board, but given how pricey
CTI boards have
gotten recently (a DECNA card from the same seller recently sold for
$422.99), I probably won't win. If the winner of the auction reads
this, could they please contact me? I'd like to collect an image of the
boot ROM from the board, if possible.
I might drop a bid on it, but that's one of those serious "what the hell
would I do with it" sort of things. I still can't believe that DEC would
try to run Microvax code on a system like the Pro with a hard drive
controller which was slower than a literal snail....
Maybe DEC had an RQDX3 or ESDI CTI controller with real DMA somewhere in
the works?
5:02 p.m.
On Jul 12, 2022, at 3:48 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
The standard ones, yes, but the connector and address wires supported up to a MW per
board, perhaps even 2. It's mentioned in the Pro technical manual. I thought about
building such a beast, never did.
paul
Recently eBay seller smhelectronics261 posted a
very interesting prototype board: https://www.ebay.com/itm/295087630609
The description is "Dec Digital PRO 350/380 Professional Microvax II Proto 54-16707
Collectors", and the board art mentions "MICROVAX SOFTCARD."
Well, that is a weird concept. Maybe they were gunning to make the absolutely slowest Vax
system ever, the MV1 just wasn't enough of a challenge....
Does anyone know anything about this card?
Especially curious is the daughtercard connector: is it just for RAM expansion or is the
daughtercard necessary for card operation?
Daughtercard almost looks like a Pro memory board, but those were 16 bit and only 256kw
in size if I recall. That's can't be enough to do anything useful.
10:07 p.m.
On 7/13/2022 3:02 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
The standard ones, yes, but the connector and address wires supported up to a MW
per board, perhaps even 2. It's mentioned in the Pro technical manual. I thought
about building such a beast, never did.
I actually did design and build such a board, and yes, it supports up to
2 MB (on the PC380 only).
But the connector on the eBay board can't be a connector for a DEC
Professional RAM daughtercard because it's the wrong gender and has too
many positions. The DEC Pro RAM daughtercards also have header sockets,
not pins, and they either have 40 positions (PC325/PC350) or 48
positions (PC380). The eBay board seems to have a connector with 2x32 =
64 positions.
--Bjoren
Does
anyone know anything about this card? Especially curious is the daughtercard connector:
is it just for RAM expansion or is the daughtercard necessary for card operation?
Daughtercard almost looks like a Pro memory board, but those were 16 bit and only
256kw in size if I recall. That's can't be enough to do anything useful.
17 Jul
17 Jul
5:32 p.m.
Well, auction is over, I didn't bid on it, and I hope someone here got it.
That said, the more I look at it, and the more I look at a true MVII
card the more I wonder just what was missing on this card. A true MVII
has a pair of rather large custom ASICs in the center of the board and I
can't believe the 80186 (or whatever that chip is on the top center of
the board) could emulate it all.
So it would be interesting to see what this thing was and what it did.
C
On 7/12/2022 12:58 PM, Bjoren Davis via cctalk wrote:
Hello Classic fans,
Recently eBay seller smhelectronics261 posted a very interesting
prototype board: https://www.ebay.com/itm/295087630609
The description is "Dec Digital PRO 350/380 Professional Microvax II
Proto 54-16707 Collectors", and the board art mentions "MICROVAX
SOFTCARD."
Does anyone know anything about this card? Especially curious is the
daughtercard connector: is it just for RAM expansion or is the
daughtercard necessary for card operation?
The photographs are fuzzy, but the more recent chip date I can see is
8536 (on one of the QFPs). This puts the board in the time period of
the MicroVAX II development.
The internal "MicroVAX Business Plan"
(http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/610/memos/Microvax_Business_Plan_Dec83.pdf)
mentions a "Meteor" project (p. 11). It describes Meteor as:
Meteor is Digital's first single-user MicroVAX product. Developed
within Low End Engineering, the product is positioned as a strong
competitor in the low end, technical/scientific and the high end
office/business graphics workstation market. Meteor should be an
effective follow-on product to the Professional Series and high end
VAX/Seahorse workstations. Although not a replacement product per
se, Meteor represents a clear migration path for PRO users upward in
functionality, and for VAX Workstation applications downward to a
lower cost, single user design.
Does anyone know if this board is Meteor?
I'll be bidding on the board, but given how pricey CTI boards have
gotten recently (a DECNA card from the same seller recently sold for
$422.99), I probably won't win. If the winner of the auction reads
this, could they please contact me? I'd like to collect an image of the
boot ROM from the board, if possible.
Thanks.
--Bjoren
655
days inactive
661
days old
4 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
-
Bjoren Davis -
Chris Zach -
Paul Koning