8 May
2004
8 May
'04
9:44 p.m.
Hello everyone,
Recently, I met up with listmember Rick Murphy to take a beautiful
VAXstation 3500 (KA650, QBus, RX50, DEQNA)in BA123 enclosure, along with
VR290 monitor, puck mouse and keyboard, off his hands. (Allow me to commend
him for being a good sport, I was ~30 minutes late ;))
It is a near flawless machine, except both of its RD53s are dead as
doornails. The platter isn't stuck, but the opening up the drive tricks
have all been tried. It powers up and then powers right back down. (But is
at least detected, it seems)
In any case, I am looking to make this thing work again. :) I am looking
for any kind of Qbus goodies, specifically a SCSI card. If this is too rare
an item, I am looking for a DSSI card. If this isn't an option either, I am
looking for any RDxx drive.
I am also looking for an RX22 drive, so that I can load a kernel off it and
not have to worry with all that stuff, just simple, reliable NFS. :)
Lastly (and this is a long shot), does anyone have a spare backdoor to the
BA123 enclosure, or even just the hinge would do (mine is falling off).
Any replies are appreciated, I can't wait to get this thing up and running
as a full-time server. :)
--
Thanks,
Torquil MacCorkle, III
Lexington, Virginia
9 May
9 May
4:01 a.m.
Torquil MacCorkle, III declared on Sunday 09 May 2004 04:44 am:
Hello everyone,
Hi! :)
In any case, I am looking to make this thing work
again. :) I am
looking for any kind of Qbus goodies, specifically a SCSI card. If
this is too rare an item, I am looking for a DSSI card. If this isn't
an option either, I am looking for any RDxx drive.
SCSI cards are $200-$300ish for disk compatible ones on eBay, when they
show up. After collecting a few QBUS things I got lucky and obtained
one in a machine. A DSSI card should be cheaper (KFQSA/M7769), if you
can find one and a drive. You could also try to find someone with a
KDA50 and SDI drives (RAxx) or a third-party SMD controller and SMD
drives, or ESDI controller and ESDI drives... there was one of those on
ebay just about a week ago, but it went for more than I'd want to spend.
For now, it'll probably be easiest for you to find some ST251s or ST225s,
and although they're small, you might be able to get an old copy of VMS
onto them. I'm sure you could get NetBSD to fit on a ST251.
I am also looking for an RX22 drive, so that I can
load a kernel off
it and not have to worry with all that stuff, just simple, reliable
NFS. :)
RX22? Do you mean an RX33? If so, you can make one from a TEAC FD-55GFR
floppy drive. Some instructions are here:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/hardwar…
I remember seeing better instructions somewhere else, but can't find them
now.
As far as a hard drive goes, you could find an ST225 (RD31) or ST251
(RD32), as those seem to be the easiest to find. You'll need to
reformat them, which you can do using XXDP on a PDP-11 or TEST 70 on a
VAXstation 2000. If you can find one but don't have either of the
above, let me know and I'll see if I can help.
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
7:35 a.m.
Patrick's information is pretty complete. I'll mention that DSSI/RFxx
_drives_ are easier to find than controllers, and for SDI/RAxx series
both controllers and drives are not hard to find. Someone up in
Massachusetts sold me a beautiful RA92 drive a year ago for $50,
and seemed to have dozens more.
Also I wouldn't be surprised if you could boot directly from the network,
instead of a floppy, but not sure of that one.
John A.
7:51 a.m.
John Allain declared on Sunday 09 May 2004 02:35 pm:
Also I wouldn't be surprised if you could boot
directly from the
network, instead of a floppy, but not sure of that one.
Yes, you can in fact, if you set up a mop boot server on something. I
use a Debian Linux box with mopd installed to boot NetBSD on my
VAXstation 3200 (basically a MicroVAX 3500 in a BA23). Of course, this
requires a DEQNA or DELQA board, which should be easy to find on eBay
for less than $20 (or from someone on the list).
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
1:55 p.m.
John Allain wrote:
Patrick's information is pretty complete.
I'll mention that DSSI/RFxx
_drives_ are easier to find than controllers, and for SDI/RAxx series
both controllers and drives are not hard to find. Someone up in
Massachusetts sold me a beautiful RA92 drive a year ago for $50,
and seemed to have dozens more.
Also I wouldn't be surprised if you could boot directly from the network,
instead of a floppy, but not sure of that one.
I have a MV-III with a DEQNA interface and RQDX3 w/RD54, and a MOP
boot with all filesystems *and* swap on remote NFS partitions is
considerably faster than running on the RD54.
Doc
10 May
10 May
5:21 a.m.
I have a MV-III with a DEQNA interface and RQDX3
w/RD54,
and a MOP boot with all filesystems *and* swap on remote NFS
partitions is considerably faster than running on the RD54.
My impression is that in order of performance it goes MFM -> DSSI
-> SDI and that the vS3500 was considered a performance machine,
leading to the 3520 and '40. (going out on a limb now) I would actually
be surprised if DEC ever shipped a vS3500 with MFM drives.
Perhaps TMaC's system was customised by a prior user?
John A.
5:45 a.m.
My impression is that in order of performance it goes
MFM -> DSSI
-> SDI and that the vS3500 was considered a performance machine,
leading to the 3520 and '40. (going out on a limb now) I
would actually be surprised if DEC ever shipped a vS3500 with
MFM drives. Perhaps TMaC's system was customised by a prior user?
There was a low-end VS3500 that shipped with an RD5x drive: it
was called the VAXstation 3200. It came in a BA23 box IIRC.
Anyone who considered a VS3500 a performance machine (even when
it came out) was on something or in someone's pay or utterly
clueless :-)
Antonio
--
---------------
Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org
7:23 a.m.
On Mon, 10 May 2004 13:21:17 -0400
"John Allain" <allain(a)panix.com> wrote:
My impression is that in order of performance it goes
MFM -> DSSI
-> SDI
I would say DSSI, SDI, SMD and (depending on controller and drive) EDSI
are equal in performance.
and that the vS3500 was considered a performance
machine,
No. QBus VAXen are low end machines.
leading to the 3520 and '40.
The MV3500 on
one side and the VS35[24]0 on the other side are
completely different machines. The MV3500 is single CPU and all QBus
where the VS35[24]0 has 2 or 4 CPUs, a special MBus (?) and some sort of
QBus that AFAIK was only usable for a TQK70.
I would actually be surprised if DEC ever shipped a
vS3500 with MFM
drives.
My MV3500 came with MFM disks. (But was later extended with SMD and DSSI
by the previous owner.)
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
7:21 a.m.
and that the vS3500 was considered a performance
machine,
No. QBus VAXen are low end machines. 
10 May
10 May
10:24 a.m.
At 01:21 PM 5/10/2004, John Allain wrote:
It's the latter - a VAX 3500 in a BA123 into which I installed my old
GPX card set.
Some other answers about the system - it does have a RQDX3. It boots
off of floppy (RX50) currently and did boot the RD54 from my other VAX.
The "RX22" mistake was mine - it sounds like a common 1.2 Mb floppy
drive might just work as a replacement - this would allow NetBSD floppy
boot at least.
-Rick
I have a
MV-III with a DEQNA interface and RQDX3 w/RD54,
and a MOP boot with all filesystems *and* swap on remote NFS
partitions is considerably faster than running on the RD54.
My impression is that in order of performance it goes MFM -> DSSI
-> SDI and that the vS3500 was considered a performance machine,
leading to the 3520 and '40. (going out on a limb now) I would actually
be surprised if DEC ever shipped a vS3500 with MFM drives.
Perhaps TMaC's system was customised by a prior user?
7531
days inactive
7533
days old
10 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
allain＠panix.com -
arcarlini＠iee.org -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
pat＠computer-refuge.org -
rick＠rickmurphy.net -
torquil＠chemist.com