On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 01:59:46PM -0500, Brian Chase wrote: I have one sitting in a closet and one sitting on my workbench at home. The spare is in an untested state, but the one sitting out boots uVMS 4.2 test platform, an 11/03, is sitting on top of it). Software Results Corp. bought it new when they were first released (c. 1984?). They also bought another one that they did pay $17,000 to upgrade to a uVAX-II. Both of these have had the older, defective wiring harnesses replaced, one after stinking up the manufacturing area. It was quite charred when removed. One of the biggest limitations is the fact that they use Qbus memory and are limited to 4MB. In general, unless you have a particular fondness for them for their place in history, for "real" work, a uVAX-II is much more useful. OTOH, it's easy to pull the CPU boards, put them on a shelf, and reversibly "upgrade" a uVAX-I to a Micro-PDP. :-) (the other big limitation, at least to me, is the fact that the low-level format on disks attached to an RQDX1 is not compatible with RQDX3 and similar controllers like what's embedded in the uVAX-2000, or the Professional series). -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 07-Jan-2004 19:10 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -19.7 F (-28.8 C) Windchill -56.9 F (-49.4 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 12.4 kts Grid 001 Barometer 687.6 mb (10341. ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 08:11:21PM -0000, Witchy wrote: There's one of two harnesses under the air diverter in the drive-bay area... The old ones have press-to-fit contacts and the body of the connectors are made from an amber resin. The newer ones are crimp-ons and are in a white nylon-like shell. The older ones can't take the current the uVAX draws, and begin to oxidize. Oxidation causes resistance which causes heat... You _will_ want to replace that harness if it's the older type. It's a fire hazard. This goes for _all_ BA-23 cabs, BTW, not just uVAX-Is. Those are just the right era, thus, a concern. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 07-Jan-2004 20:20 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -18.9 F (-28.3 C) Windchill -52.9 F (-47.2 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 11.3 kts Grid 002 Barometer 687.5 mb (10345. ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

At 08:29 PM 1/7/04 +0000, you wrote: In the old days, the factory would almost certainly pay for the replacement harness and installation since it's a fire hazard. AND it's likely they will STILL pay for it . I helped a friend of mine pick up an old SGI Reality Engine II a couple of years ago. After checking it he found that it had five original style PSUs in it and that they were prone to catching fire. Even though it was an old machine SGI came to his house and replaced the PSUs with five brand new ones at no charge. It turns out that the PSUs (especially NEW ones) are worth CONSIDERABLY more than what he paid for the entire machine. Joe

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Witchy wrote: My BA123 still has the original harnesses, and I've been wondering about replacing them too. Are they actually obtainable at all these days (for low cost), or are they something that I should just assemble myself? I haven't yet really spent a lot of time on it, as the power supply needs some work (I suspect the filter caps have gone bad due to age, and I haven't had time to have a go at it with a 'scope). -Toth

Quothe Witchy, from writings of Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 09:10:40PM -0000: Hmmph, I doubt that many people are left at HP who would even know what a wiring harness is, given that Fiorina "screw the American workers" BimboBabe and her crew of Meaningless But Arrogant credentialed toadies are running that "high-tech" freak show, which was once a company that produced well designed products. It's quite interesting how CEOs like her can yak, repetetively, for long perods of time without saying anything sensible, while biz'droids, and biz'droid larvae (students working towards MBAs, etc.), listen to them with much awe and respect. -- Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

To keep it short, yeah, rare. FWIW It may be the slowest VAX ever created* (or, the 725?). The essence of BA23 based system collecting nowadays seems to be to have the logo'ed power switch and the unique cards. The rest of the system (except the software) is nonunique and interchangeable AFAIK. *I have a vague recollection that the uVI chipset was created by DEC proprietary in-house fabrication(?) techniques... Upon seeing the results they then consulted with outside chip fabricators for the uVII. John A.

On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 03:38:40PM -0500, Brian Chase wrote: There was a rumor going around the DEC community in 1984 that the uVAX-I was so slow at running VAX instructions (0.3 VUPS, IIRC, slower than the 0.4 VUPS of an 11/725 or 11/730 ) that its PDP-11 emulation mode was faster. Nobody I know tried to verify it, though. Also, I thought that the 86xx was the last series that supported emulation mode. I didn't think the KA820 or KA825 processors (82xx/83xx) did. If so, then most of my VAXen are on that list (all of them except the uVAX-II and uVAX2000). -ethan P.S. - long ago, we used to _use_ emulation mode at work... for playing games from an RSX box for which we'd either lost or never had the source. -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 10-Jan-2004 23:10 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -14.4 F (-25.8 C) Windchill -38.7 F (-39.3 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 8.5 kts Grid 076 Barometer 686.8 mb (10369 ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

My VARM states, on page 378 (in Appendix B, if you have a different version) that the uVAX I does NOT have PDP-11 compatibility mode. Mine's the 1987 version that has Figure 11.1 but no Table 11.1. Chapter 11 is "Architectural Subsetting". Regardless of what any book says, I'd be stunned if they squeezed compatibility mode into the uVAX I. AFAIK, none of the chip-based VAXen have compatibility mode. Also AFAIK, only the VAX-11/7xx series includes compatibility mode (although you need to know that the VAX 8600 was going to be the VAX-11/790 for this simple rule to work :-)). The VAX 8200 (Scorpio) and the VAX 8800/8700/8500/8530 (Nautilus) do NOT include compatibility mode. Finally, if you drop the right boards into a BA123 to make a uVAX I, it's not *much* smaller than a VAX-11/725 :-) Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org

Well the VAX 8600 was very, very late by the time it actually came out. There were rumours that they'd had real trouble with the timings and had to slow it down to achieve reliable operation (the VAX 8650 follow-on was supposed to be when they actually sorted that out). So my guess is that they wanted to make it seem all shiny and new, rather than being 11/780 design redone in ECL. But since it's marketing, I guess we'll never know :-) Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org