UPDATE (was: Re: VAX 6000-400 series and NetBSD, I have machines) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

2 Apr 2001

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gunther Schadow" &lt;gunther(a)aurora.regenstrief.org&gt;
To: &lt;port-vax(a)netbsd.org&gt;
Cc: "Lord Isildur" &lt;mrfusion(a)umbar.vaxpower.org&gt;rg>; "Brian Chase"
&lt;bdc(a)world.std.com&gt;om>; "J. Buck Caldwell" &lt;buckaroo(a)igps.org&gt;
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 5:19 AM
Subject: UPDATE (was: Re: VAX 6000-400 series and NetBSD, I have
machines)

...
  O.K. I now have the inventory of the VAXen. You can
see the listing at

 http://aurora.regenstrief.org/VAX.html

 It's quite extensive. These are indeed four 6420 cabinets, though
 basically 4 times an identical parts list, and no disk support at all. 
Typical Cluster setup. Pity you didn't get the HSC and other bits too.
I'd give you one, but it's a little far to ship it.

...
  One has a bad power unit. I will use that one as a
resource for spare
 parts. Unless anyone wants to repair the power unit, that will go to the
...
  junk yard. 
Which PSU is crook?  The mains input box, the 300V supply or one of the
LV supplies?

...
  One of the other machine's cabinets lacks a back
door, so
 I will even use the door from the machine with the broken power unit.
 I'll save all boards, cables, and screws that I can get off easily. 
These are like a meccano set, everything unbolts pretty well, but you
will wind up with a mountain of screws and washers.
They suffer from what we used to call in the domestic electronics
servicing industry 'cousin effect' - the designer had a cousin who owned
a screw factory.  :^)
Someone once mentioned that a friend was attempting to build up one of
these minus the cabinet, ie just the cages and psu's, it would be a
little tricky, but probably possible, and it would make it a lot more
compact.

LV and HV PSU's may fail occasionally, and the TK70's are painful at
times, everything else in there
is ultra reliable.

...
  The two machines I will give away will have 2 CPUs
each and 256 MB RAM.

Nice.

...
  I will hold on to the spare parts in order to trade
them for other
 interfaces if necessary. We should get one SDI and one DSSI interface
 at least, if not an SCSI interface. 
That would be good, the SDI would probably be the easiest to find,
though not necessarily the easiest to support, with the
XMI-BI stuff in the middle.

<SNIP>

...
  Matthew Hudson offered to donate SDI disk drives and
perhaps a DSSI
 interface card. The SDI drives are heavy (64 kg, according to Geoff.) 
If they are RA8x's, yes, big, awkward, heavy suckers, I can barely carry
one on my own.  RA9x's are around 30kg, weighty but tolerable, quite
reliable and 1/3 the power/noise of the RA8x's. The RA8x's are power
hungry and unreliable (the spindle bearings tend to pack up - the
platters are 1/2 metre across and are belt driven!) not to mention very
noisy.  I have several, but do not use them anymore.
RA7x's are house brick size/weight, with usual 5v/12v power, but you
need at least the SA70 and the right SDI cabling (The cabling is the
same for any SDI drive.)
Trickier than it sounds, since you can't connect the black SDI's leads
directly to the SA70 RA9x, RA8x, you need the cable and socket affair
that is on the rack cabinet.  You should be able to find some without
too much trouble, if the RA8x's are in cabinets, the same cable loom
will work with the SA70 enclosures or RA9x drives.
81's are 480mb, 82's are 620mb.  90's are 1Gb 91's 1.2Gb.  70's are
250mb, 71's 750mb, 72's 1Gb, 73's 1.2Gb (I think).
You would just about fit one Ra8x in the bottom of a 6k, maybe, 2 RA9x's
fit comfortably, and an SA70 is virtually the same dimensions as a
single RA9x drive, so in theory you could fit 8 x RA7x's in their SA70s'
in the bottom of a 6K, but you would need 2 KDB50s to support them.

...
  Brian, you're organizing the truck for shipment to
Bloomington? I'd
 be most grateful if that truck would also bring my machine home in
 Indy. We may need about 3 to 4 more hands. 
Ideal number for manual handling of 6k's is about six, and if the truck
bed isn't too high, you can stick a thin mattress under them, lay them
on their side on it, and slide them off onto a hard surface, then wheel
...
 from there, if the floor is smooth enough. A forklift
is much easier though. ;^)  Done it both ways.

...
  If need be I'm willing to
 accompany you to Bloomington to help with carrying the stuff you take.
 Make sure you get a heavy cart and lots of strong and long straps. There
...
  are carts that have a strap so you can get a tight
hold of a
 refrigerator or laundromat. 
...
  This works fairly well, but ask them what
 the maximum load is, these boxes are about 300 kg (according to Geoff)
 though mine may be lighter 'cause there are no disks or power backup
 unit inside. 
The 318kg is bare machine weight, and does not include disks (which are
not mounted internally in 6ks - my setup is nonstandard) or optional
extras like the Battery backup pack, (do any of these have one??) which
weighs about 40kg or so, (mostly the SLAC batteries).
If you intend to do the 3phase-single phase conversion, you can save
around 30kg by removing that bloody great autotransformer between the
mains input box and the 300V supply.  It's surplus to the conversion.
Every little bit helps when you are moving something this heavy.