19 May
2016
19 May
'16
9:31 a.m.
On Thu, 19 May 2016, Swift Griggs wrote:
I got lucky on the list maybe a year ago and Bob Rosenbloom helped me get
my Q-bus VAX itch scratched again ... I've got a microVAX III+ now and a
microVAX III as well. I've done a pretty good job of rebuilding my stash
of Q-bus spares ... but I'm still down a SCSI board and I've never seen
another microVAX I around... Ah, well, the KA655 is more functional ;)
I loved this box and it was the only desktop PS/2 (really, the only Intel
x86-based machine) I had ever intended to really preserve as an exhibit.
It had the P60 processor complex (with FDIV bug!) and I had just totally
loaded it down with all my best MCA finds accrued over the years. XGA-2,
dual SCSI buses, dual Ethernet, Token Ring, etc. I even found a MCA FDDI
card I had intended to install in the machine, but never got round to it.
OS/2 would drive the little front panel LCD in a cool way. Probably won't
have the chance to get another one without paying mad money these days.
Now, huge was the PC Server 500! ;)
It was a neat little thing and it had probably the best laptop keyboard I
have ever used. Just awesome. It sat in the trunk of my car for years and
got carelessly chucked out during a clean-out. I miss it now ... it was
just about the perfect vintage for a DOS box for a number of applications
and it was rock-solid, too. Arg.
Yeah, this one was a custom build using a PM6100av as a base, with the 486
DOS card out of a 6100 DOS Compatible that I scrapped out. It was a tight
fit, but it all worked! Fun little novelty for the time ;)
I still have a (plain) PM6100 DOS Compatible (with dead PSU) and also a
PDS Reply 486 DOS card for the Quadra 800 ... I haven't been able to get
either one of them working again, to my chagrin ... I'm still working on
it. It's tricky to line up just the right version of the System with the
right version of the DOS card software.
The primary value in these to me was that they were built on the rather
obscure Clipper CPU. I never was able to use them because I didn't have a
monitor, keyboard and mouse and there wasn't enough documentation around
to even figure out if and how to use a serial console with them ... my
recollection is that Intergraph was not very hobbyist-frendly. I never had
any CLIX media and no other OS ever supported them. I do wish I still had
an example of a Clipper CPU (and I pop up and look for them occasionally)
but to make up for it, karma gave me a cheap MVME181 a few years back so I
suppose my collection is down one strange RISC chip and up another ;)
Oh, just an empty BA123 enclosure ... no boards or drives but otherwise
complete with Q-bus backplane, PSU, console bulkhead ... pic here:
http://www.netbsd.org/images/machines/vax/microvax2-ba123.jpg
The guts were the aforementioned lost microVAX III ... I had moved the
cards and disk into a smaller BA23 cabinet so it took up less space and
used less power ... I was running it fairly regularly at the time ;)
Best,
Sean
DEC microVAX III BA23 (w/ SCSI)
DEC microVAX I BA23
I think thre is a DEC microVAX II still sitting powered down in a corner
here at my office.
IBM PS/2 Mod 95
Ugh. That thing is yuuuuge. There is only so much PS/2 I can take. I
prefer the small/cute workstations.
IBM PS/2 L40 SX
Whoa. A PS/2 laptop. I never even knew there was such a beast. Plus it's
got an interesting shape and keyboard. Huh.
PM 6100 AV DOS Compatible (for real!)
Bizzare. Did it have some kind of PC card inside?
Intergraph Series 2400 (x2)
I always wanted to play with an Intergraph box. I was too busy obsessing
over SGI's boxes, though.
a BA123 cabinet once (what was I thinking?)
What in the world is this thing? You call it a cabinet but it looks just
like the MicroVAX II I just mentioned. Is it some kind of fancy case
upgrade for a VAX ?
