VAX 8600

Adrian Graham <witchy at binarydinosaurs.co.uk> wrote: Hey, nice machine! As a person who actually still keep one of these beasts alive, I have a few comments that might, or might not help you. First of all, it's a fairly loaded machine. You have atleast three unibuses, and since you have a TU79, I would think you also have massbus. Really nice. (First time I've actually seen a TU79, btw. Only seen TA79 before.) However, the buts... There is no memory in the machine. Do you keep those cards in a box somewhere, or are you missing them? Also, if you look at the bottom of the large cabinet, there is a box there, with a TOY in it. That TOY contains four lead batteries, that should not be left unattended for more than six months, or they will probably go bad. Without batteries, the machine will not boot. I think I have some document somewhere on how to bypass this if you don't have the batteries. Let me know if you ever get as far as trying to fire the machine up. Also, the smaller cabinet for the machine, that holds the first unibus box, the console Q-bus, and the RL02 drive is a very important item. The RL02 drive holds the console medium. This pack is extremely valuable for you. Without it, you'll have a inoperative machine, since the frontend boots from the RL02, and the frontend then loads the machine with all the microcode also read from the RL02. Almost all diagnostics are also on the RL02. Store it in a good place, and try to make copies of it. Oh, and is it an ASR-35 I see in the background? :-) The 86x0 machines are wonderful, and loads of fun to play with. As long as you have the power and cooling for them. Oh, and make sure you hook the power up right to it, since the fans for the machine are real 3-phase motors, and will run backwards if you get the phases wrong. And that will soon damage the machine as well. Johnny