TK50Z-GA and MicroVax 3100/90?

I will say that with a (pretty common) seagate 40M disk, you can get a bare install of VMS 5.5 on there, and that's more than enough to drive a tk50 and transfer files to other systems over DECNet. Could also netboot it from the other system. Really? I don't believe I've ever seen one without the ethernet module. That is to say, the cable that comes out of the ethernet ports on all of the ones I've seen is always plugged into something. I know that the ethernet was optional, and that the co-ax/aui ports were there whether the board is there or not. Were they sold apart from the systems? I wouldn't expect them to be available in most cases apart from a system that was sold as a MicroVAX. That said, DEC was supposedly very prolific with these systems, and you ought to be able to get plenty of parts for them. The extreme configurations (color graphics, 8/12[?]MB memory options, etc) are going to be more difficult. The median seems to be b&w VAXStation, ethernet, 4M RAM option. That kind of thing ought to be pretty easy to find. The "box" that the 2000s set on, which exposed the SCSI port, etc, is a bit harder to find, but there are a few around. More common on the "MicroVAX" variant, so if you have the choice, go for one of these. (Unless, of course, the VAXStation would give you the color framebuffer, or a large memory board) Also, you have a better chance of finding a disk in the "MicroVAX" systems, too. The VAXStations (more common too, I think) were lots of times run diskless. It's interesting, because they put "load boards" in them for that. Basically these are resistor packs that load the PSU up so that it won't panic due to the lack of disks. They're nice to have for -- for instance -- running a system with no disk, or use with Wolfgang Moeller's SCSI drivers for these systems. (Which I've not tried yet, but will eventually, supposedly, you can put SCSI disks in them that way. It's _very_ unsupported, of course :) Honestly, any 2000 you find will probably be reasonably cheap (like in the $20 range, max) At best, you'll find one in a scrap pile somewhere. They're solid systems, so even if it's gotten left in a warehouse for ages, I wouldn't expect much trouble with it. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '