25 Jul
2001
25 Jul
'01
9:47 a.m.
About 18 months ago, I was given a Vax 11/780, complete with almost 60
Dec terminals, Dec laser and dot matrix printers, hubs, connecting
devices, disks, tapes, manuals, and a couple of MicroVax boxes,
software, in other words the whole works. Since I only collect micros
and some Unix workstations, I posted it's availability and the inventory
of hardware that I could see in a short trip through the computer
room. The Vax hardware had just come off the DEC maintance contract a
couple of months before and had just been serviced. After posting to the
list I only got one response and at the time I was living in an
apartment and didn't have room to store the system. Finally it was
dumpstered. The same fate fell to the two PDP11's that were removed
from service a couple on months later.
James
"Carlini, Antonio" wrote:
more to the point :-). I had very little feedback.
One from one
There may not be many 11/78x machines in hobbyist hands.
There may not be too many corporations subscribed to
this list :-)
It took me many years (admittedly in the UK) before
I came across a uPDP-11. I've never seen a Robin (hint,hint...).
You need to be patient. In my experience, the docs and
hardware will come along at different times - never
turn down an incomplete package (I'm preaching to
the converted here since you have the innards
already !).
How many VAX-11/78x machines were produced?
These days you expect that thousands of any machine would
be sold (except maybe the specialised supercomputers).
I believe that for the VAX 9000 series, only 400-500 made
it out of the door. The same order of magnitude may well
be true for the VAX-11/78x systems.
How long have people been collecting such
large machines? I don't have the room -
I could not realistically find room for a VAX 4000
right now, never mind anything bigger!
9 months ago :-). However, I have indication that
my 11/785 boards
won't work on the 11/780 backplane. So, I'm still desperately
looking for a 11/785. I would be a lot more patient if I saw those
I don't know anything about the 11/780 => 11/785
upgrade but I would be surprised if the backplane
had to be replaced.
in the first place. Where are they?
They may all be in dealers wharehouses and defence
sites and nuclear power stations. I did hear of three
being decommissioned in the UK a few years ago
but that's about it.
get some leads to follow. The underlying
assumption being that
there is one 11/785 recycled as scrapmetal every month that I don't
find it.
I suspect the underlying assumption is just that
there are not that many of the beasts still around.
I guess by the time I have the room for one of
these, there won't be any left!
Antonio