18 May
1999
18 May
'99
1:20 p.m.
Upon the date 02:51 PM 5/18/99 -0400, John Ruschmeyer said something like:
Wow John! You startled me with knowing what the military system was which
used my HP 9000/375! Apparently you've seen/worked on the MCS before.
This is what is so doggone great about the bunch of folks on this list!
Such a variety of knowledge about many things and willing to share it. I
only hope that I've been of help myself to some of the folks here.
That's interesting.
With the gear being so virgin looking, this set was probably indeed just
stored away unused since it may have been procured close to when ver 11 was
put into the field.
If it's stripped then I can simply load the 7.0 that I have on hand. No
problem it seems :)
Seems I read somewhere (on a ng or somebody's website) that 7.0 was the
last officially supported HP-UX for the 300 series but whether a specific
group of the 300's (320/330/340/etc.) was the subject of that statement I
can't recall now.
Yes, the bulkhead panel which was part of the 19" rack the owner wanted to
keep had all the cables which connected to the system box (k'bd, video
coax's, remote speaker, HPIB and High Speed HPIB (for the disk), parallel
printer (I think), etc. They were soldered to the several AN/MS connectors
mounted on the bulkhead panel which were cabled to the other boxes you
spoke of above.
Now I think for sure I did see those other MCS boxes for sale at another
vendors' space a row or two over, probably where the fellow I bought the
9000 boxes from had gotten it. They didn't look cheap enough for me to buy
as they were big and relatively modern and I figured the dealer would want
a big buck for them. Apparently not as the MCS box with the computer cost
only $50. Oh well.
Besides, if I could buy them I did not have a truck out in the Salem Mall
parking lot and they'd not fit onto the shuttle bus very well :(
Anyway, I was very focused on looking for BC-191/BC-375 parts, DEC items,
early radio parts, early TV items, tech manuals for a variety of things,
Ethernet patch cables, AUI translators, and several other things so I
didn't let my focus wander into those big MCS cases. So dang much to see,
so little time to study :(
And my best
find of all: a virtually mint, seemingly unused HP9000/300
computer with 7958B hard drive (150 Mb IIRC) and 9144A 16-track tape drive.
A label on the 98574 CPU module indicated it's been upgraded to a 375 which
is just about the ultimate of the 300-series. A 68030 processor running at
50MHz and 16 Mb of RAM. Nice!
My new 9000/375 system was built into a 19" rack enclosure which was in
turn bolted into a fiberglas transit case about 3' tall, 2' wide by about
2.5' deep. It was part of a military surplus system. I did not get a chance
to find the AN system designation on the rack or case, just that it weighed
97 pounds and required two persons to carry.
US Army Maneuver Control System, Version 10. The box you have was box #2
of what would have bene configured as a 3-box or 6-box set.
Other boxes included one which held the monitor (and doubled as a desk),
the communications processor, and the powersupply. If you look, you should
find a tag from either Loral or Ford Aerospace, as they were the MCS version
10 contractor.
Didn't study the transit case too much. No obvious ID tag seen or else I'd
study it closely as I collect older military electronic gear. Nothing at
all on the HP gear except for the rubber stamped numbers on the starboard
side of the main system unit.
From the sounds of it, you have one a field
upgraded processor, but not
the later disk drive. (Later revisions of MCS 10 outgrew
the 150mb drive.)
AFAIR, it's actually still in use in some units. Apparently it had been built and not used *ever*.
Just stuck in a military
warehouse probably as a result of a military contract which didn't go
anywhere or as a result of the Cold War ceasing or something. I absolutely
cannot see *any* dust on the leading edges of the fan blades so this system
has maybe only an hour or two at most of operation :) SNs are from mid-89.
There's a Federal Stock Number or system part number rubber stamped onto
the right side of the computer box. A probably earlier FSN or contractor's
PN has been blacked out with paint (about 3/8" x 1.5" strip) and the
present number rubber stamped onto the case after the upgrade to the 375
model was done. A little ugly, but what the hey! It shows a bit about the
original purpose of the machine. That's the only indication of any special
use of it. The update was done in December '91 according to a date
handwritten on the CPU board tag inside.
Makes sense... MCS 10.3 was the fielded version at the time. (Version 11
was well on its way to failure, but would suffer for another year or so
before being killed.) [...] Only thing I had to
promise him was to email him with what I found on the disk. He's a UNI*
system admin and had enough UNI* machines of his own. I'm surprised he
hadn't seen an HP 9000 machine before but these 300's were obsolete some
time ago and he indicated he was always an Intel-based UNI* user.
Probably nothing on the HD as standard govt. policy is to wipe before
excessing. If it was a contractor system, then that might be different.
AFAIR, MCS 10 ran on a stripped configuration of HP-UX 7.03 I've got a copy of HP-UX 7.0 on tape with the
license, both still
shrinkwrapped, and manual set that I've had for some time. Now I've got a
machine to hang it upon! :) BTW, ver. 7.0 is near or at the end of HP-UX
support for the 300's. Have BASIC-UX ver. 5.0 w/license and docs too!
Good combo... 8.0 should also run fine, though you'd want more memory. The keyboard and monitor were some sort of
rugged, militarized things built
into an operator's station. The fellow who had it never got from the
surplus dealer as it obviously didn't quite interest him and maybe he
didn't realize what it was. If it's what I *think* I saw an hour or so
earlier at a surplus dealer's space not far away it definitelly wasn't the
normal HP keyboard as it was part of some other section of the system used
as the operations console and was connected via AN/MS connectors and
cables. Have absolutely no idea as to the function of the whole system. If
there's something on the hard disk when it comes up it may give me a good
clue. But I gotta get it lit up first.
The normal connectors were brought out to the bulkheads where they were
converted to AN/MS connectors. The keyboard would have been a stock
HP/IL keboard, but might have had a hacked cable..
<<<john>>>
P.S. the 3-box and 6-box configs were jokingly referred to as the
"refrigerator" and the "double-wide refridgerator".
Thanks profusely for the input John! Very much appreciated.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/awa