1 Apr
2002
1 Apr
'02
9:47 p.m.
Gunther Schadow wrote:
I am looking for VAX Hardware Reference for the VAX 11/780, 11/785,
86x0, the uVAX-II, and then the VAX 6000s. I suspect that's not all
in one book. But, what revisions of the Hardware Reference are
there
anyway? I think the first edition is the 1978/1979, at
least my
VAX Architecture Handbook bears this date. I understand that the
"Handbooks" were a 3-volume series, with volume 1 Architecture,
vol 2 Harware and vol 3 Software (VMS). I assume that they threw
out old models in more recent editions, right? Could we reconstruct
which topics are described in which edition of the Hardware
Handbook?
There are lots of handbooks. I have:
- VAX Architecture 1981
- VAX 11/780 Hardware Handbook 1979/80
- VAX 11/780 Architecture Handbook 1977-78
- VAX Hardware Handbook 1982-83
(the above all cover the VAX 11/7xx series only)
- VAX Hardware Handbook 1986 Volume 1
- VAX Hardware Handbook 1986 Volume 2
- MicroVAX Systems Handbook
- VAX Systems Handbook - UNIBUS Systems
- VAX Systems Handbook - VAXBI Systems
There are probably further editions. I'd say the
technical content went down as time went
on but they do all at least provide a
user-level overview.
One can't buy those any more, how does that
influence the right to
compile and share copies? I wonder if one could archive the
Hardware handbooks by subject and that way compile a single volume
with complete coverage of all VAXen.
DFWCUG ( http://montagar.com/~patj/dec/hcps.htm )
are scanning stuff. I've not seen any handbooks
yet but you could try contacting them and seeing
how far they have got to date. They do have the covers
of many handbooks available. I know that one of
their problems was finding a way of removing
the book spine cleanly (to feed the book through
a sheet feed scanner). If you try http://www.decdocs.org
you see a bunch of links to other sites, some of which
have a few handbooks available in various forms
(although I don't think the handbooks you want are
online anywhere I have seen).
Besides, there is a mystical "Perepherial
Handbook" to which I have
seen reference once, but never any copy in bookstores, catalogues
or
on eBay. Did it ever exist? Was it volume 4 of the
series? What
items were covered over the years in there?
There is a Peripherals handbook (for the cover see:
http://montagar.com/~patj/dec/pdp11/index.htm )
There were several editions, one every couple of years.
These handbooks (which were not really a series as
such) were marketing collateral. They were put together
by marketing either to give away on customer
visits, or to sell on. They should not
be relied on too heavily for technical
information (except, I suppose, in the absence
of a real technical manual).
Antonio