5 Aug
2019
5 Aug
'19
12:39 p.m.
I have access to 3 ES45s, a DS15, and an RA8000 in a tall blue Compaq rack
in Athabasca, Alberta. All the in-service disks were removed but all the
spares are available. The box also has the fibre switches used the connect
the RA8000 to the servers and the cables, much of the paper documentation,
and assorted doodads. It would probably work if plugged in but it has been
a year since it was turned off.
Athabasca, Alberta is about 1.000km North of the US Montana border and
10,000km from nowhere but it is summer and the weather is nice so we might
be able to load this great heavy beast on a trailer and haul it up to a
day's drive away if anybody want this stuff. This is rural Alberta so
a day's drive is a l-o-n-g way (like 1,000km?).
I tried to give this away in early 2019 but the deal fell through. If
I don't get a place to send it then I will keep the DS15 and convert the
rest of it into scrap metal.
--
Richard Loken VE6BSV : "...underneath those tuques we wear,
Athabasca, Alberta Canada : our heads are naked!"
** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black
5 Aug
5 Aug
2:03 p.m.
On Mon, Aug 5, 2019, at 9:39 AM, Richard Loken via cctalk wrote:
I have access to 3 ES45s, a DS15, and an RA8000 in a
tall blue Compaq rack
in Athabasca, Alberta. All the in-service disks were removed but all the
spares are available. The box also has the fibre switches used the connect
the RA8000 to the servers and the cables, much of the paper documentation,
and assorted doodads. It would probably work if plugged in but it has been
a year since it was turned off.
That's a really impressively beefy Alpha setup.
I just did the math, and Athabasca is about a 14 hour drive from here in Seattle. I'm
tempted, but... I don't know where I'd put it. I'm clean out of room for a
whole rack :(
I do hope someone rescues it. Consider this a *nudge* to the group. If you have space, and
means of transport, this is really worth picking up, so please go get it!
-Seth
--
Seth Morabito
Poulsbo, WA
web at loomcom.com
2:35 p.m.
On Aug 5, 2019, at 1:03 PM, Seth Morabito via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I'm tempted, but... I don't know where I'd put it. I'm clean out of room
for a whole rack :(
Seth,
you just need to think about this objectively.
Alphaserver rack ?.. refrigerator.
Which will give you more pleasure in the long run?
Glad to help out there. :-)
I do hope someone rescues it.
Seriously, *SO* strongly seconded? San Antonio is a long way from Athabasca. Sigh.
- Mark
3:50 p.m.
On Mon, Aug 05, 2019 at 10:39:01AM -0600, Richard Loken via cctalk wrote:
Athabasca, Alberta is about 1.000km North of the US
Montana border
and 10,000km from nowhere
And 2,248 miles from my house, according to Google Maps :-)
I'll bet it would be a pretty road trip but I think I'll have to pass ...
mcl
4:14 p.m.
On 8/5/19 12:50 PM, Mark Linimon via cctalk wrote:
On Mon, Aug 05, 2019 at 10:39:01AM -0600, Richard
Loken via cctalk wrote:
I have been most of the way there. Passenger in an RV from Seattle to
Edson, AB and back and I have flown to Edmonton and driven to Edson. It
is pretty, particularly when someone else is driving.
I live around 10 miles from Seth, so it the same 14-15 hour trip that he
would have. The Bay Area is closer. And I have no room anyway.
But so tempting.
alan
Athabasca, Alberta is about 1.000km North of the
US Montana border
and 10,000km from nowhere
And 2,248 miles from my house, according to Google Maps :-)
I'll bet it would be a pretty road trip but I think I'll have to pass ... 
8:51 p.m.
A mere 579 miles from Kamloops. Unfortunately have to talk to my
wife who thinks I have too many computers even though I've given away
bulk of my DEC stuff. Never got a chance to play around on Alpha as
it came out during my Mac days.
I have access to 3 ES45s, a DS15, and an RA8000 in a
tall blue
Compaq rack in Athabasca, Alberta. All the in-service disks were
removed but all the spares are available. The box also has the
fibre switches used the connect the RA8000 to the servers and the
cables, much of the paper documentation, and assorted doodads. It
would probably work if plugged in but it has been a year since it
was turned off.
Athabasca, Alberta is about 1.000km North of the US Montana border
and 10,000km from nowhere but it is summer and the weather is nice
so we might be able to load this great heavy beast on a trailer and
haul it up to a day's drive away if anybody want this stuff. This
is rural Alberta so
a day's drive is a l-o-n-g way (like 1,000km?).
I tried to give this away in early 2019 but the deal fell through. If
I don't get a place to send it then I will keep the DS15 and convert the
rest of it into scrap metal.
--
Richard Loken VE6BSV : "...underneath those tuques we wear,
Athabasca, Alberta Canada : our heads are naked!"
** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black
10:40 p.m.
On 8/5/2019 6:51 PM, Boris Gimbarzevsky via cctalk wrote:
A mere 579 miles from Kamloops.? Unfortunately have to
talk to my wife
who thinks I have too many computers even though I've given away bulk of
my DEC stuff.? Never got a chance to play around on Alpha as it came out
during my Mac days.
Now why could it not be a nice little PDP 11.
Ben.
11:01 p.m.
On Mon, 5 Aug 2019, ben via cctalk wrote:
Now why could it not be a nice little PDP 11.
Ben.
I once had a pDp11/04 which I let go, it did not seem like much at the
time but now I feel differantly.
--
Richard Loken VE6BSV : "...underneath those tuques we wear,
Athabasca, Alberta Canada : our heads are naked!"
** rlloken at telus.net ** : - Arthur Black
11:24 p.m.
On 8/5/19 8:40 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
Now why could it not be a nice little PDP 11.
I thought that it could be if it was running emulation software.
Or was that more that the VAX-11 could emulate a PDP-11 up to a specific
version & hardware combination? (Read: Did this functionality not get
carried forward to the Alphas?)
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
6 Aug
6 Aug
4:42 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Grant Taylor via
cctalk
Sent: 06 August 2019 04:25
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Alphaservers for free in Athabasca, Alberta
On 8/5/19 8:40 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
I think it went from the VAX fairly early in the model range. I don't believe that any
of the MicroVax machines implemented this.
The VAX Architecture manual
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/archSpec/EY-3459E-DP_VAX_Arc…
(page 289) simply says its an optional feature without saying which models had it...
Dave
Now why could it not be a nice little PDP 11.
I thought that it could be if it was running emulation software.
Or was that more that the VAX-11 could emulate a PDP-11 up to a specific
version & hardware combination? (Read: Did this functionality not get carried
forward to the Alphas?)
--
Grant. . . .
unix || die
11:38 a.m.
On 08/06/2019 03:42 AM, Dave Wade via cctalk wrote:
The VAX 11/780 definitely had PDP-11 emulation, apparently
in the microcode. I'm kind of guessing the 750 and 730 also
had this. As far as I know, no later machines had hardware
(microcode) emulation, and did it all by software. It
didn't take very long for DEC to recompile all the VMS
utilities into native VAX executables. I think we started
with VMS 3.x and very quickly updated to a 4.1 VMS version.
I was not aware of any PDP-11 code in them, but I did not
look very closely.
Jon
-----Original
Message-----
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Grant Taylor via
cctalk
Sent: 06 August 2019 04:25
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Alphaservers for free in Athabasca, Alberta
On 8/5/19 8:40 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
I think it went from the VAX fairly early in the model range. I don't believe
that any of the MicroVax machines implemented this.
The VAX Architecture manual
Now why could it not be a nice little PDP 11.
I thought that it could be if it was running emulation software.
Or was that more that the VAX-11 could emulate a PDP-11 up to a specific
version & hardware combination? (Read: Did this functionality not get carried
forward to the Alphas?)
11 Aug
11 Aug
3:14 p.m.
On 06/08/2019 16:38, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
The VAX 11/780 definitely had PDP-11 emulation,
apparently in the
microcode.? I'm kind of guessing the 750 and 730 also had this. As far
as I know, no later machines had hardware (microcode) emulation, and
did it all by software.? It didn't take very long for DEC to recompile
all the VMS utilities into native VAX executables.? I think we started
with VMS 3.x and very quickly updated to a 4.1 VMS version.? I was not
aware of any PDP-11 code in them, but I did not look very closely.
The VAX-11/7xx all implemented PDP-11 compatibility mode, I think.
That's VAX-11/780, VAX-11/725/730, VAX-11/750 and VAX 8600 (which was at
one point going to be VAX-11/790). The VAX 8650 was a souped up VAX 8600
[1] so that almost certainly has PDP-11 compatibility mode. Nothing else
does. The VAX 82x0/83x0/85x0/8700/8800/88x0 don't.
Antonio
[1] Actually I think that the VAX 8600 ("Venus") was slowed down to get
it reliable enough to ship at all (and it was quite late at that, iirc).
The VAX 8650 ("Morningstar") followed just over a year later and was
(more or less) what the original VAX 8600 should have been.
--
Antonio Carlini
antonio at acarlini.com
6 Aug
6 Aug
7 a.m.
On 8/5/19 11:24 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
On 8/5/19 8:40 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
That functionality didn't get carried forward past the first
couple VAX.
bill
Now why could it not be a nice little PDP 11.
I thought that it could be if it was running emulation software.
Or was that more that the VAX-11 could emulate a PDP-11 up to a specific
version & hardware combination?? (Read: Did this functionality not get
carried forward to the Alphas?)
5 Aug
5 Aug
11:25 p.m.
Had to give away my Minc system with 2 RLO2
drives and 2 RK03 drives but it did go to a good
home. Have a couple of 11/23 systems left but
have been in storeage long enough that can't fire
them up without first totally going over power
supplies as large electrolytics don't age
well. My wife is after me to get rid of "old
stuff" but it's the most fun to use and easiest
to repair. May have to placate her by getting
rid of my collection of 80x86 PC's which can now
be easily replaced by Propeller systems for data acquisition applications.
On 8/5/2019 6:51 PM, Boris Gimbarzevsky via cctalk
wrote:
A mere 579 miles from Kamloops.? Unfortunately
have to talk to my wife who thinks I have too
many computers even though I've given away bulk
of my DEC stuff.? Never got a chance to play
around on Alpha as it came out during my Mac days.
Now why could it not be a nice little PDP 11.
Ben.
1879
days inactive
1885
days old
13 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
a.carlini＠ntlworld.com -
aperry＠snowmoose.com -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
bill.gunshannon＠hotmail.com -
boris＠summitclinic.com -
cctalk＠gtaylor.tnetconsulting.net -
dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
elson＠pico-systems.com -
linimon＠lonesome.com -
mtapley＠swri.edu -
rlloken＠telus.net -
web＠loomcom.com