13 Dec
1998
13 Dec
'98
6:46 a.m.
Jay Jaeger <cube(a)msn.fullfeed.com> wrote:
While I was at the regular weekly UW (Wisconsin) Friday
surplus sale
I noticed a DecSystem 5400 with 2 RA90 disk drives and a
TK70 tape drive is available out there for $20, including a short rack.
The system looks very very clean, physically. I have no room for it.
It is not a MicroVAX, but is instead a RISC system,
presumably using a MIPS
RISC processor.
The folks over there told me they are having a big sale
December 29th, so
if you want it, you should probably grab it no later than that. They are
open every Friday AM from 8AM to 2PM, IIRC.
Adam Fritzler <afritz(a)delphid.ml.org>
Wish I had enough to ship/get such a thing to AZ....
Someone tried to sell
me one of these locally about 8mo ago for about $800...
Nice boxes for their time. QBus version of the
DECstation line of
MIPS-based machines.
A 5400 uses a BA213 chassis. The lower portion is a 12 slot Qbus backplane.
The upper section has room to mount a tape drive, and up to three RFxx
series drives. The BA213 can be rack mounted, but mostly found in a stand
alone case measuring around 14x20x27. The case has wheels which, given
the weight of the thing, is nice.
It uses a two board KN210 processor set, slot 1 being the I/O module and
slot 2 being the CPU module. It will take up to four MS650 16Mb memory
cards. The processor runs at 20Mhz. It has an MMJ console connector
and both BNC and AUI Ethernet connectors. It will run Ultrix 3.1B or
later.
The RA90 drives are 1.2Gb.
My point is that someone needs to haul this off. I have already got two
of them, or might think about getting it myself. Actually too far away
and the wrong time of the year. I had a dealer in IL offer me $150 for
one, but I decided it was worth more just to play with.
If someone gets this, I have the 5400 hardware manual and will answer what
questions I can. I also have a manual on the RA90/RA92 and the SA600/SA800
Storage Array (that I suspect the drives are mounted in) that I don't
need.
Mike