5 Oct
2016
5 Oct
'16
8:26 p.m.
Assuming this DEC 3000 is the model with the memory
daughter boards
populated with endless rows of (expensive and hard to find) proprietary
100 pin SIMMs,yes I have some extra memory and daughter boards.
Though wikipedia tells me that the 400 model only has two such daughter
boards, for a total of 8 sticks.
Yes, it does have the proprietary unobtainium ram which is why I came to cctalk. :-) It
has 4 long daughter boards, each with two rows of two modules. I was lucky enough to get
the manuals with the system. The manuals state that the bottom rows of slots combine to
form memory bank 1 and the top rows combine to form bank two. The memory test was failing
after a considerable amount of time with an ECC error so I took a gamble and removed the
memory from bank 2 (8x100 pin dimms) and now the machine boots to OpenVMS and appears to
be stable. This has reduced the total memory to 32MB which I'd like to at least
double. I gather these systems can hold up to 512MB.
For comparison, inside my 3000 700:
http://archives.smbfc.net/uploads/retrocomputing/DEC3000_inside.jpg
Yours looks exactly like what the layout of my 400 looks like except I have a framebuffer
card.
http://www.sysop.ca/media/DEC3000/dec3000_memory.jpg
A couple of fully populated daughter boards:
http://archives.smbfc.net/uploads/retrocomputing/DEC3000_mem.jpg
I have to grab them from the garage, but I'm pretty sure I have a couple
fully populated daughter boards ready to go, though I don't remember the
capacty of the sticks that are in there. I do remember, that the way the
SIMMs are banked is counter-intuitive, so be sure to read the
docs as you swap memory round.
Anyway, I'm happy to send them to you for testing. If they solve your problem,
we can work something out.
Excellent, thank you. I will mail you off-list.
