-----Original Message----- From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)freegate.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, 1 December 1998 10:17 Subject: VAX collectors attention Hierarchical Storage Controller. Waist high filing cabinet sized box, HEAVY too. Basically, it's a PDP8 I think, running a little o/s called CRONIC (Colorado Rudimentary Operating Nucleus for Intelligent Controllers) Bots off a pair of TU58 mini tape cassette drives. It's a controller/manager for SDI and STI (+ optional 3rd party SCSI tape) drives. You can do backups, and a few other things, just using the HSC without the host Vax. Talk to it with a VT100 or whatever terminal, or over the CI with the SET HOST /HSC command Normally part of a VAXcluster, it serves drives to several machines over a proprietary 70mbs (I think) thick cable network called the CI (Computer Interconnect). Needs another box called a Star Coupler (strange transformer gizmo, acts much like a hub, but passive) as well. Works with RAxx and TAxx series tape drives. Though ours had an Emulex SCSI adapter that drove two HP 4mm 5Gb DAT drives through a special interface, emulating a TA78 tape system to the HSC/VAX. (The card's still in the HSC, but the interface box with the drives in it died, and is no longer supported by Emulex.) I've now got a VS4000-90 hosting one of the HP DAT drives, clustered to the 6320, so I can at least access stuff I had saved on it. It's currently feeding our Vax 6320, plus I have another complete one for spares. Uses about 600w IIRC. BI and XMI adapters were/are available for various Vaxen to allow them to connect over the CI bus. Decnet will also run across it, so it made for fairly high cluster performance. Pretty much obsolete now. There was a slightly more sophisticated version called a HSC70 that used RX floppys instead of the tapes, and could handle more drives, etc. I think there were a couple of models after that too. I've seen a HSC70 at a scrap dealer recently. Not a lot of use unless you have a big (82xx 83xx 85xx 86xx 6000-xxx etc) Vax that needs one to talk to it's drives. Allison or one of the other Master Decologists will doubtless correct any mistakes in the above. :^) Cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Marks College Port Pirie South Australia. My ICQ# is 1970476 Ph. 61-411-623-978 (Mobile) 61-8-8633-0619 (Home) 61-8-8633-8834 (Work-Direct) 61-8-8633-0104 (Fax)