VAX9000 unearthed

Excellent photos! I didn't realize the 9000 had a vector processor. One reason the design was so expensive is that it was originally planned as a water-cooled machine -- code name "Aquarius". At some point that idea was dropped and switched to air cooling -- code name "Aridus". I guess those skinny pipes with red and blue markers carry jets of cooling air, but were originally going to carry water. The 9000 also had its own I/O bus, XMI, different from BI. I don't know how its performance compares, whether it was worth the effort. Speaking of vector processors: there's a very obscure DEC processor, the DEC MPP. I remember seeing the processor architecture document when it was being designed, not sure why. It's a very-RISC machine, just a few instructions, but lots of cores especially for that time -- 256? More? Recently I saw it mentioned in some documents, apparently it did get produced and shipped, perhaps only in small numbers. I wonder if any have been preserved. As far as I know there is no family connection between that machine and anything else DEC did before or since. paul