I have one of the 4000/200s, and a single person (or married operating
separately) can move them if you pull the drives, power supply, and
possibly cards if there are many.
It helps to think of the 4200 as a very good BA-4xx MicroVAX rather
than a very wussy VAX, as it really has more in common with the Qbus
MicroVAX 3xxx machines.
Regarding the 4000/705A's- a picture of any BA440 VAX will look like
them, not much has changed. I believe the 705A was one of the "server"
model VAXen that only shipped with a 2-concurrent user license (maybe
single-user?) but close to a VAX 9000 in processor power (slow
perepheral interface, though [3.3 MB Qbus and 2 or 4x DSSI.] Would have
been nice if DEC had put a high-speed interface beside the Qbus, but
there's no point in worrying about it now. I don't think the current
hobbyist license enforces the machine-class limitations, so you could
use your 4k as a multiuser VMS installation. xBSD doesn't support DSSI
currently, and 4.4BSD-QJ doesn't support VAX 4k, so you're pretty much
stuck with VMS, but that's not a real limitation.
Haven't got mine working yet, but if you need drives investigate a HSC
system. Some interface the DSSI bus to SCSI disk arrays. HSD05 comes
often as a standalone StorageWorks SBB for the BA5x blocks, and I've
seen DEC documentation that indicates you could get an internal model
that would connect to the storage backplane. Throw one of those on the
middle, and do a DSSI cluster of the two machines, and you'd have one
hot system. Enjoy it and use it well.
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So far everybody responding mave made these sound heavier than they
could be seen. The combination of low center of gravity, great handles and
small cross-sectional area make for good lifting. I routinely walk them up
stairs and do a 30" lift onto my car gate with only the smallest difficulty.
I'm a tall but not especially strong type. Very easy to handle for the
weight.
I should say that I have one microVAX 3400 here (northeast)
for a good cause.
John A.
and I would rate a Fujitsu Eagle a backbuster.