In article <Pine.GSO.4.55.0809301046390.26480 at helios.cs.csubak.edu>, David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> writes: You're talking about seller "md9ent", aka "Drake's Retro Video Game Shop". I saw that when he first listed it some time ago. I have no idea why he would break a VT180 down into parts, but this behavior of breaking down machines into parts and selling the parts has been going on for as long as there have been computers. Its easier to ship parts then entire units and some people think they'll make more from the sum of the sold parts than they would make from selling the entire unit. For instance, when was the last time you saw a SGI Challenge, Crimson or Onyx deskside sold on ebay? Instead you see lots of people offering individual boards, memory sticks, drive sleds, and power supplies. Its easier and cheaper to ship out parts than it is to arrange freight shipping for one of these large beer keg sized computers (keg laying down, of course). At any rate, what you observe may be "disturbing" to you, but it has been going on for what I would guess is many years. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

Paul Anderson wrote: A: Yes I will buy ONE.

On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 09:26:37PM -0600, Richard wrote: I have some experience with a few of those - I got a VT105 with a MINC long ago, and I once got a VT241 base in exchange for repairing a pair of them (bad power switch on the front, and bad EIA receivers inside). IIRC, the difference between the VT240 and VT241 was which monitor you hung off of it. A VR201 made it a VT240, and a VR241(?) made it a VT241. Both of those monitors are compatible with the Rainbow, IIRC, and the VR201 was quite common since it also came with DECmates and Professional machines. I have little experience with newer terminals, but the one I've wanted for a while is a GiGi (VK100?). A modern version of one of my old projects - take a VT103 (which I have), and stuff a MicroVAX + SCSI interface into it to make it a self-contained VAX. I suspect some backplane fiddlery would be required, since a BA23 has CD slots at the top for either the CPU interconnect (uVAX-I) or PMI (uVAX-II). A PDP-11 would be much a much easier fit, I'd say (but I've already done that, with external disks and the internal TU58s). With the mini-ATX board in there, you could run simh and turn your "VT100" into any one of a number of DEC machines (my choice would be a PDP-10, but I'd use klh10 and the "Panda Distribution" for that). I don't know if the PSU in a VT100 has enough spare amps for an internal PC, but the VT103 should, especially if you use a laptop hard disk and a processor that uses less than 36W - i.e., not a P4). What would make it really handy is if you got a motherboard that could be set up for serial console - it's possible with some, but I don't know if any Mini-ATX (or other small format) boards can do it. Worst case, I suppose, is that it boots up headless and you know it's up when the login prompt shows up on the screen. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 1-Oct-2008 at 03:50 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -76.0 F (-60.0 C) Windchill -117.3 F (-83.0 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 13.5 kts Grid 49 Barometer 681.1 mb (10587 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

In article <20081001043053.GB1961 at usap.gov>, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> writes: I had seen one of these when it first came out. I think we got a poor demo at the time from what I read of the specifications now. I picked up a couple of these from ebay recently. Lately I've been reorganizing my collection in my basement and I now have a room full of quite a bit of graphics hardware: +----------+ +----------+ |Rack 1 | |Rack 2 | | | | | +----------+ +----------+ +-++---+ |5|| 6 | +---+ +-++---+ +---+ Rack| Rack| |3 | |4 | | | | | | | | | | | | | +---+ +---+ Rack 1: SGI Rack 1 2 Indigo^2 (Teal and Purple) 2 Indigo 3 Octane 3 Octane Rack 2: SGI Rack 2 2 O2, 1 Indy 3 Octane 3 Octane 3 Octane Rack 3: Work Rack Commodore 64, Apple ][e Tektronix 4051 Mac Classic, HP 2645A terminal VT220, HP 2640B terminal VT320, Beehive terminal Rack 4: Graphics Decades Rack 3 HP 1351A graphics generators, 1 DEC GIGI terminal Control Data 110 Microcomputer System (PLATO terminal) Terak Graphics Workstation SGI Personal Iris 4D/35, CDC Cyber 910, SGI Personal Iris 4D/20 5 - Tektronix 4010 terminal 6 - Tektronix 4114 terminal You can always put the PC connectors on the back and plug in a second keyboard, second monitor and a mouse into your "VT100". :-) -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>