5 Jan
2006
5 Jan
'06
9:44 p.m.
On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 15:25 -0700, Richard wrote:
Yes... the VS8000 was codenamed Lynx.
The basic platform started its life as "Aurora", which was intended to
be the bottom of the mid-range server family. It was the first project I
worked on when I joined DEC in 1986.
Aurora was a Microvax II CPU with some local memory, on the BI bus, with
its own set of BI I/O boards. There was a disk controller for RD series
disks (KFBTA if I remember correctly). Also a combined Ethernet and
TK50 controller.
The project was basically doomed when VMS engineering refused to support
a "mutant" MicroVAX II.
But the various parts lived on, including as the VS8000. The Ethernet
controller became the DEBNA which was the standard BI Ethernet card. I
think the CPU board got used for the console processor in the VAX9000.
/gary
Internal to
E&S? I did see a DEC FS engineer carry in a box of
new memory for our VAX 8200 (when I was a customer) and the box
had "Lynx memory" scribbled on the outside. The VAX 8200 was
Scorpio, but I _thought_ the VAXstation 8000 was Lynx. Several
of the VAXstation series were named after cats (Panther and Cougar
spring to mind).
Maybe I'm misremembering code names. Lynx does sound familiar.