13 Jan
1999
13 Jan
'99
9:19 p.m.
Just found a free PDP 11/23 which I'll be picking up tomorrow, and a VT220.
I know nothing at all about this machine - are there precautions I should take before
shifting it? Drive parking or some such?
Are there any hard to find extras that I should ask about before collecting it? Thanks
for any help the list members may provide. As you can tell, this is quite urgent - about
18 hours before I pickup.
The guy also has 6 free Sparcstation SLCs - I didn't bags those - maybe I should?!
A
14 Jan
14 Jan
2:16 a.m.
Just found a free PDP 11/23 which I'll be picking
up tomorrow, and a VT220.
I know nothing at all about this machine - are there precautions I should take before
shifting it? Drive parking or some such?
Are there any hard to find extras that I should ask about before collecting it? Thanks
for any help the list members may provide. As you can tell, this is quite urgent - about
18 hours before I pickup.
The guy also has 6 free Sparcstation SLCs - I didn't bags those - maybe I should?!
The PDP11/23 doesn't need disk parking if it's got RD class (PC MFM ST412
type disks) in it. RL01/RL02's can be handled by opening the little right
side hatch, pulling down on the button to release the cover (if you can
power 'em up you can use the normal cover opening latch).
There's a head lock plate and screw that swivels up to lock the
heads in.
The Sparcstation SLC's are kind of slick. The problem is the memory for
them costs more than the SLC. They're 72 pin 33 bit wide... You can
use parity 76pin. The problem is most of them have 16mb in 'em and you
need at least 32-48 mb (I recommend 64) to run Solaris or SunOS.
With 16mb the darn thing swaps itself nuts with X and especially CDE.
I've got an IPX that has 16mb (same memory) and to go to 64mb is 4x$55
per SIMM which is $200+ (more than the IPX cost). If I could find the
memory I'd grab some SLC's... They're basically Sparc2's with mono frame
buffer in a monitor. Just add external SCSI and run. They'd make neat
Xterminals.
If anyone has a source for the memory cheep
Bill
4:02 a.m.
The Sparcstation SLC's are kind of slick. The
problem is the memory for
them costs more than the SLC. They're 72 pin 33 bit wide... You can
use parity 76pin. The problem is most of them have 16mb in 'em and you
need at least 32-48 mb (I recommend 64) to run Solaris or SunOS.
With 16mb the darn thing swaps itself nuts with X and especially CDE.
I've got an IPX that has 16mb (same memory) and to go to 64mb is 4x$55
per SIMM which is $200+ (more than the IPX cost). If I could find the
memory I'd grab some SLC's... They're basically Sparc2's with mono frame
buffer in a monitor. Just add external SCSI and run. They'd make neat
Xterminals.
SLC's are not Sparc 2 equivalent... more like Sparc 1+ (25mhz vs. 40mhz).
The ELC (same form as the SLC, but faster CPU) is more like Sparc 2 speed.
Like Bill said... nice box, though I hear the monitor has a habit of
dying over time. Still, might be worth grabbing one or two and looking
for a suplus ELC motherboard. It's a direct drop in.
<<<John>>>
7:39 a.m.
Bill Pechter said...
|
|The Sparcstation SLC's are kind of slick. The problem is the memory for
|them costs more than the SLC. They're 72 pin 33 bit wide... You can
|use parity 76pin. The problem is most of them have 16mb in 'em and you
|need at least 32-48 mb (I recommend 64) to run Solaris or SunOS.
0) So don't run the windowing system.
1) What about Linux? Has it been ported to the SLC yet?
2) There was some software to turn old Suns into X terminals.
Was it ported to the SLCs? While 16MB isn't a lot for an X
terminal, it will work in some situations.
-Miles
7:52 a.m.
Bill Pechter said...
|
|The Sparcstation SLC's are kind of slick. The problem is the memory for
|them costs more than the SLC. They're 72 pin 33 bit wide... You can
|use parity 76pin. The problem is most of them have 16mb in 'em and you
|need at least 32-48 mb (I recommend 64) to run Solaris or SunOS.
0) So don't run the windowing system.
Remember it's about a 486/33 on the SLC speed.
It's still slow.
1) What about Linux? Has it been ported to the SLC
yet?
Yup. So's NetBSD.
2) There was some software to turn old Suns into X
terminals.
Was it ported to the SLCs? While 16MB isn't a lot for an X
terminal, it will work in some situations.
It works... but slow since the frame buffer was less than your
reasonable VGA of today.
-Miles
Bill
---
Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a
villain in a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller
bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.nws.net|pechter@pechter.ddns.org
10:50 a.m.
On Thu, 14 Jan 1999, Bill Pechter wrote:
memory I'd grab some SLC's... They're
basically Sparc2's with mono frame
buffer in a monitor. Just add external SCSI and run. They'd make neat
Xterminals.
Except the CRTs in them are uniformly poor and fade horribly---if they
don't go fuzzy first. We've got about six thousand (or so it seems) piled
up in the corners here. They're awful machines. It could be amusing to
make a high-speed switched backplane to plug the CPU cards into to make a
SPARC/Linux Beowolf cluster, but beyond that.. eugh.
--
ok
r. r e d @ b e a r s . o r g
===========================
[ urs longa | vita brevis ]
5:31 a.m.
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7:40 a.m.
Andrew Davie said...
|
|The guy also has 6 free Sparcstation SLCs - I didn't bags those - maybe =
|I should?!
I'd be happy to take any or all of those off your hands.
(See my other post on using them even if they
don't have much memory.)
Where are you located?
-Miles
9:17 a.m.
How big are these things? Would you be willing to part with one for
a slight compensation?
Thanks,
Tim
Date sent: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 12:40:43 -0600 (CST)
Send reply to: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
From: meo(a)netads.com (Miles O'Neal)
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: PDP 11/23 advice
Andrew Davie said...
|
|The guy also has 6 free Sparcstation SLCs - I didn't bags those - maybe =
|I should?!
I'd be happy to take any or all of those off your hands.
(See my other post on using them even if they
don't have much memory.)
Where are you located?
-Miles
********************************************
*Tim D. Hotze - Co-Founder, The ReviewGuide*
*tim(a)thereviewguide.com *
*http://www.thereviewguide.com *
********************************************
noon
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adavie＠mad.scientist.com -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
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