VAX 11/780 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

4 Apr 2013

From: Brian Roth <abacos_98 at yahoo.com>
To: "cctech at classiccmp.org" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Subject: VAX 11/780
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	<1365090232.96105.YahooMailNeo at web141403.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
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    I just recently acquired a very nearly complete VAX 11/780. I will
    be spending the next few months in a partial tear down and cleaning
    and with luck, hopefully little money to get it operational again. I
    am looking for whatever spare parts I can find for the VAX and its
    TU78 tape drive. I have plenty of spare drives and such. One thing I
    am in need of is a console boot floppy and whatever diags I can find
    on floppy for it. Also, I do have a hobbyist license but I would
    like to get an early version of VMS to run on it if I can find a tape.

Holy moly!  Amazing!  Well, I used to know the 780 pretty well, but 
didn't save anything
...
 from the two I was manager of.  The biggest problem I
might imagine is  getting the
LSI 11 to boot off the floppy drive.  I suspect original floppies may 
have deteriorated
to the point they won't read.  Higher-level diags can be booted from 
tape, but there
were some low-level diags like control store diags that could only be 
run from the
LSI 11.  I believe the machine could actually CREATE a new diag floppy 
...
 from the diag tape, though, so if you can find
good blank floppies you could 
recreate the
diags.

Hmm, refresh my memory, the TU77 was the 800/1600 BPI drive and the
TU78 was the 1600/6250 drive?  I'm pretty familiar with both.  We had an
early TU77, and went through about 13 mod kits on it to get it to stop 
melting
tapes on the heads.  It really flew through tape, though.

Good luck restoring this machine!

Jon