New VAX 6000 toys. - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

16 Oct 2002

OK, I finally dug out my DEC systems & options catalogs, and found
a couple of references to the rack-mount 6000 in the 1990 and 1991
catalogs.  These were originally sold as two 19" rack-mountable enclosures,
one containing the XMI cardcage, and the other containing a BI cardcage.
Both enclosures appear very similar, with the main difference being that
the XMI enclosure has a very small front panel on it.  The BI enclosure
seems
to have a cutout on the front panel for a TK70 tape drive and _no_ front
panel. The earlier catalogs treat the 2 cardcages as 1 complete system,
while the later catalogs refer to the 19" rack BI enclosure as an
"option".

Not being greatly familiar with the 6000, am I correct in assuming that
if you don't have the BI "option" you have not I/O capability whatsoever?
(except for possibly ethernet?   how about SCSI?)

-al-

...
  -----Original Message-----
 From: Antonio Carlini [mailto:Antonio.Carlini@riverstonenet.com]
 Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 5:21 AM
 To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
 Subject: RE: New VAX 6000 toys.

 The main difference with this box is that it's
not as expandable as a
full VAX 6000.  The big ones have ample space within them for disk
drives, tape drives, and BI bus card cages.  I think the   full VAX 6000s
 come standard with one, maybe two BI bus card
cages.  
 My VAX 6000 is no longer here, so I have to go on memory. 
 Pretty much all
 there is in a standard 6000 is a row of PSUs at the top, a 
 row with the
 VAXBI and XMI busses and - right at the bottom - a 
 converter/coditioner
 that takes the incoming power feed and presents it to the 
 rest of the box.
 There is a large gap with plenty of air in it. About the only 
 thing you could 
 use it for was a late-breaking internal storage addon. Every 6000 I've
 seen had external storage (mostly via CI, since that's what 
 big customers
 were expected to do).

 Internally it cannot have been much wider that 19" so I would 
 guess that the
 rack-mount version would be about the same but without the large wad
 of air :-)

 These rackmount boxes only have an XMI bus.  I
suppose it'd   be possible
 to hang BI busses off of this with an external
box; that's   if you needed

 Is there no space for a VAXBI? My box had an XMI to the right and two
 VAXBIs to the left (IIRC).

 on comp.os.vms say that it's easy to boot this
type of system over an
ethernet based VAXcluster.  Your disk I/O will be bottlenecked by the
speed of the ethernet.  I'm planning on running mine this   way initially.

 I've done this - it works well. Especially nice is botting from an
 InfoServer for upgrades etc. 

 Antonio
 arcarlini(a)iee.org