20 May
2004
20 May
'04
12:37 p.m.
On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 10:46:46AM -0700, Michael Sokolov wrote:
Well, then again I don't have room for or ability
to transport a full 19" rack
either... But if the VAX system per se is not the rack but the rackmount units
in it, is there perchance a way you could let me have those?? I want a
VAXBI/XMI machine sooooo bad! Just obtained a copy of the VAXBI spec a couple
months ago and just dying to work with some real HW. But have no room for a
rack. The best I can do is run rackmount units on the bedroom floor instead of
a rack. (What do you do when you just can't afford a real machine room? Use a
bedroom instead.)
I've never had an XMI machine, but I do have a BI machine in the basement,
an 8200/8300 (depending on if I slot in the second processor or not).
I suppose I'd use it more if I had a disk interface for it other than SDI,
or if I had some SDI disks other than an RA81 and one 3rd-party SDI<->ESDI
box. Because I have lots of 2MB VAXBI memory cards, the bus is full up.
The only thing that makes is really interesting is that I have a) a Unibus
adapter for it, and b) a custom VAXBI card (COMBOARD-BI) for which I have
the entire development environment. I suppose I could hack the card to
support a SCSI port or something, but, as in an earlier discussion, it would
have to be a plug-in-the-CPU-socket hack - but that would make the card
thick enough to require two slots. :-(
I just wish I could get the Unibus adapter working - it used to work before
I moved it into my basement, but something strange happened, and when I plugged
it all in, the DWBUA card fried (voltage where it shouldn't be - burned a trace
on the board and detonated a chip!) I've verified the cables are correct, and
I've replaced the DWBUA, but the best I can get now is failed self-test.
I've seen how well a VAX-6000 fills a basement - there'd be no room down in
mine for one... at least the 8200 is compact - 42" tall DEC cab, with a BA-32
at the top (size of a BA-11) and lots of room below for cables. The real
shortcoming is you are limited to two VAXBI cages or one VAXBI cage and an
internal Unibus (mine is 2x VAXBI + external BA-11)
Does anyone happen to have any "large" VAXBI memory boards? (16MB might be
the largest) I have a stack of 2MB and a couple of 4MB. I got the 4MB boards
from a scrapper for $10 each because he didn't want
to bother removing the
DRAM from it. I have the stack of 2MB boards because we used
to buy them
for <$50 each (way back) and pull the VAXBIIC off of them for our _own_
VAXBI boards (saving about $300 per board!)
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 20-May-2004 21:20 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -63 F (-52.8 C) Windchill -98.5 F (-72.5 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 11.7 kts Grid 019 Barometer 679.6 mb (10639. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html