-----Original Message----- From: Brian Chase [mailto:vaxzilla@jarai.org] Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 7:19 PM To: 'cctalk(a)classiccmp.org' Subject: New VAX 6000 toys. I've recently acquired two of those rackmount VAX 6000's that were being sold on eBay. I paid more than I should've, but given the nature of the systems, I'd have gone higher. Though they're still hefty, they are very small and light in comparison to the full sized VAX 6000's. They're still built like tanks, but I'm able to move one easily by myself. Well, at least as long as I don't have to pick it up off the ground. The other huge plus with these is that they're already wired up for single-phase power--no hacks are required. The systems have Hubbell Twist-Lock connectors: L6-20 (20A @ 250V). It'll be trivial to hook these up to household dryer circuits in the US. In their present configurations, they've each a single 6000-400 CPU, 384MB of RAM, three XMI ethernet modules, an XMI FDDI module, and two XMI CI-bus modules. My employer is planning on tossing out some of their old FDDI concentrators, so it all works out rather nicely. I'm still trying to determine if the XMI card cage is the original XMI or if it's XMI-2. Looking at the back of it, some of the metal dividers in the backplane are stamped with a date in 1991; this is after DEC started producing the XMI-2 based VAX 6000 systems. If these do support the 500 and 600 series CPUs, I'm planning on turning at least one into the world's smallest VAX 6660. The other will be a VAX 6420 with two vector processors. MUH HA HAH!!! Another interesting thing with these systems is that they've Intel asset tags affixed to them. I've often heard it stated that Intel operated the production control systems at their fabs with VAX/VMS systems. I don't know if these systems served in that capacity or not, but the guy selling them is located only a few miles from Intel's Chandler, AZ campus where several of Intel's fabs are located. As a side note, I'm often disappointed with the packing jobs of the bulkier gear I buy online. That's not the case with this seller. He seems to be well equipped for shipping heavy items. The rackmount unit was packed in a large box with thick foam surrounding it. The box was also secured to wooden pallet and wrapped in plastic. It took me about half an hour to unpack everything. He really went crazy with the plastic wrap. I believe he has more of these, three have already been put up on eBay. I've got my two, so I'm done throwing money at them; I expect the others will go for considerably less. -brian.