See embedded comments On Fri, 31 Dec 1999, Peter Pachla wrote: By the look of the IBM docs, the >C10 models appear to support more than one bus, so it could very well be. Someone was kind enough to handwrite a 16 hexadecimal digit number labeled "Sys Pw" on the inside of the case. Does that sound the right format for a system security number? It is not the serial number which like on a RS/6000 appears on the front panel in a xx-xxxxx format. Mine also does not want to boot, but I believe that is because I don't have a console hooked up yet. I have a twinax terminal for this purpose, which from my browsing of the AS400 documentation leads me to believe has to be set to "device 0/0". I did bring a twinax mux like thing that the original console was plugged into, although I did not have room for the original console terminal in my car. I had to disassemble the whole machine to get the pedestal unit light enough to lift into my trunk/back seat. I took apart what appeared to be the CPU board last night, having to break the spiffy little AS/400 holograms over some of the screws. The board was replete with many custom IBM chips none of which I recognized. I reassembled the CPU board and it refused to boot with exactly the same SRC codes as it did before, so I assume I did not zap anything. I did not see anything that resembled RAM anywhere but on the main CPU board, so I assume mine has the default 8 meg of memory. I worked at a city hall as an intern in college in the early 90's and wrote various RPG queries on the AS400. I probably have not touched an AS400 since. I developed quite a bad reputation back then among the city hall IT staff for getting into city databases where I was not allowed. Getting the commerical building contact names from the fire department database updated monthly by the firemen sure beat going door to door as I was told to do, especially during that crappy, rainy summer. Their security mechanisms seemed to rely on the lack of computer literacy of the city employees. As a result I unfairly came to associate AS/400's with lazy sysadmins who resented getting interrupted during their coffee breaks, which seemed inordinately frequent. Thanks, and keep me posted if you have any progress. Paul

Hi Paul, This is the thing, I don't know whether the bus in the expansion cabinet constitutes and extension to the existing bus or another bus altogether. Sadly I have NO documentation other than that ".pdf" handbook I grabbed from IBMs site. :-( number for mine, and I'm having a devil of a time finding out how to find out the number (IYKWIM). Uh oh, do RS series machines need some type of system security number too then? Yes, you do indeed need a console attached to the system in order for it to boot. I left the boards in mine when I came to move it, but I did have to take out all the drives and the power supplies. Even then it wasn't exactly easy to shift. I haven't gotten up the courage to do that myself yet. That said I'm going to have to take all of the modules in mine apart and give them a good cleaning - the amount of dust and gunge in the machine is incredible. I was wondering where the RAM was on the thing, from what I've been able to find out thus far none of the cards in mine appear to be RAM boards. I haven't touched a working system myself since '98. I was working at a local engineering company looking after several HP mainframes - I forget the exact model numbers but ISTR they were 3000 series machines (they ran MPE/ix anyway) - and we had an AS/400 which was about to be decomissioned when I started there....and it was still there when I left. I never got ANY training on the thing. All I knew how to do was to initiate the monthly BACS transfer and print off our pay slips. :-( No problem, but with all the other projects I have on my plate this one keeps getting pushed aside for another day. :-( TTFN - Pete. -- Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer. Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC) peter.pachla(a)wintermute.org.uk | www.wintermute.org.uk --