21 May
2000
21 May
'00
7:34 a.m.
A friend called me about a cpu cabinet sitting next to a dumpster. I would
like some background and identification on this system if anyone knows. And
most importantly - there's much more that I left behind - should I go get it
(as in anyone here want some of it)?
At first blush I didn't think it would be interesting, but it looks like an
unibus system; it also had some M8043 and M8017 cards in it so it must be
something DECish?
Here's very sketchy details...
Quadex Q5000 labeled rack and cpu enclosure
Various tags inside the cabinet mention Quadex or Scientific Micro Systems
or CompuGraphics
A very deep rackmount unit with a QIC tape slot in the front
A very deep rackmount unit with two 8" floppy drives - model A02028-501 "030
Storage Module"
The backplane looks DECish to me - similar to what I've seen in a 11/44.
Here's some of the cards that are in it.
Three M8017 - I know what these are :)
One M8043 - I know what this is too :)
Four boards #20033 - each has a tiny 4 pin connector and a tiny coax type
connector (much smaller than 10b2). Main chip is N8X305N
one #70201 which obviously went to external devices - two 50 pin headers
which end in same connector 11/23 uses to go to external RD52's
Sheild/bus terminator board - #203763
What appears to be a memory board and has a 40 pin connector on it - #75063
One board has a ton of different size ribbon cables coming off it - label
says "FWD0106"
Plessey Peripheral Systems board with 50-pin berg connector #703755
Small board #20041 with 14 pin berg coming off the side
2 card cpu set - #20038 and #20039, about 5 AM2901CPO chips, and a lot of
N82S191N chips that say things like "instruction decoder"
The SLU cards I can use in my 11/23's and 11/73's. I noticed that the back
of the cpu cabinet someone had labelled the ports - some said terminal and
some said "typesetter". Any idea what these cards are and if they're usable
in other dec systems? I left the QIC tape drive behind and they said there
was more where that rack came from - anyone interested or is this junk?
Trash pickup is on wednesday so let me know before then :)
Jay West
21 May
21 May
8:39 a.m.
Quadex Q5000 labeled rack and cpu enclosure
Various tags inside the cabinet mention Quadex or Scientific Micro Systems
or CompuGraphics
About the only thing I can tell you on all of this is that SMS (though I
thought that was SanFrancisco Micro Systems) made PDP-11 clones. I've got
two SMS chassis' with DEC PDP-11/73 dual hieght CPU's and DEC 256KW RAM.
The Disk controller and Serial I/O is all off the Q-Bus on a SMS board.
The backplane looks DECish to me - similar to what
I've seen in a 11/44.
Is it Hex-Height? A Q-Bus Backplane would normally be Quad-Height, or
maybe dual, not Hex. Could be a rather interesting beast.
Here's some of the cards that are in it.
Three M8017 - I know what these are :)
One M8043 - I know what this is too :)
Four boards #20033 - each has a tiny 4 pin connector and a tiny coax type
connector (much smaller than 10b2). Main chip is N8X305N
one #70201 which obviously went to external devices - two 50 pin headers
which end in same connector 11/23 uses to go to external RD52's
Sheild/bus terminator board - #203763
What appears to be a memory board and has a 40 pin connector on it - #75063
One board has a ton of different size ribbon cables coming off it - label
says "FWD0106"
Plessey Peripheral Systems board with 50-pin berg connector #703755
Small board #20041 with 14 pin berg coming off the side
2 card cpu set - #20038 and #20039, about 5 AM2901CPO chips, and a lot of
N82S191N chips that say things like "instruction decoder"
This sounds all very wierd, especially that 2 card CPU set. I'm wondering
what kind of CPU it even uses!
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
9:15 a.m.
New subject: Identification request - QuadexQ5000/SMS/Compugraphics/DEC ??? should I save it?
It sounds like a custom CPU, probably PDP 11 like since the cards would
have drivers.
You should pull it and plug it into a Q-bus and see if you get an ODT like
prompt.
--Chuck
At 11:34 AM 5/21/00 -0500, you wrote:
Quadex Q5000 labeled rack and cpu enclosure
22 May
22 May
6:50 a.m.
I snagged a few of these from a design firm that was tossing them. They are
dedicated page layout minis. Quadex was bought by CompuGraphic, which was in
turn bought, I think, by 3M. Thats why there are Quadex and CompuGraphic
parts on the same system. The Quadex was the most popular page layout setup
in the late seventies to early eighties. The CPU box alone is pretty much
useless, they were designed to plug into a "Desktop" terminal controller,
about the size of a modern full size tower case laying sideways. The
terminal controller ran a more or less standard terminal with special page
layout keys (The keyboards are big metal jobbers) The controller also ran a
special preview monitor and control keypad for viewing pages as WYSIWIG as
you could get back then. I'm not sure what board had the disk controller,
but mine came with a 100MB 8" Winchester drive, a DC20-style tape drive, and
a pair of 8" disk drives. I got a portion of the disk set, each 8" disk
contains ONE font, in one face, in one style, in one point size.
I've seen the typesetter these things are designed to run, its a MONSTER.
about the size of the new beetle, you have to completly disassemble it to
get it through the door. The company I saw that was running it didn't even
bother loosing the typesetter, they just converted it into a nice conference
table.
I could not find ANY information on these things on the web. They were for a
niche market and were replaced ASAP with Macs. I'll poke around my
collection and see what else I can figure out.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jay West" <west(a)tseinc.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2000 12:34 PM
Subject: Identification request - QuadexQ5000/SMS/Compugraphics/DEC ???
should I save it?
A friend called me about a cpu cabinet sitting next to
a dumpster. I would
like some background and identification on this system if anyone knows.
And
most importantly - there's much more that I left
behind - should I go get
it
(as in anyone here want some of it)?
At first blush I didn't think it would be interesting, but it looks like
an
unibus system; it also had some M8043 and M8017 cards
in it so it must be
something DECish?
Here's very sketchy details...
Quadex Q5000 labeled rack and cpu enclosure
Various tags inside the cabinet mention Quadex or Scientific Micro Systems
or CompuGraphics
A very deep rackmount unit with a QIC tape slot in the front
A very deep rackmount unit with two 8" floppy drives - model A02028-501
"030
Storage Module"
The backplane looks DECish to me - similar to what I've seen in a 11/44.
Here's some of the cards that are in it.
Three M8017 - I know what these are :)
One M8043 - I know what this is too :)
Four boards #20033 - each has a tiny 4 pin connector and a tiny coax type
connector (much smaller than 10b2). Main chip is N8X305N
one #70201 which obviously went to external devices - two 50 pin headers
which end in same connector 11/23 uses to go to external RD52's
Sheild/bus terminator board - #203763
What appears to be a memory board and has a 40 pin connector on it -
#75063
One board has a ton of different size ribbon cables
coming off it - label
says "FWD0106"
Plessey Peripheral Systems board with 50-pin berg connector #703755
Small board #20041 with 14 pin berg coming off the side
2 card cpu set - #20038 and #20039, about 5 AM2901CPO chips, and a lot of
N82S191N chips that say things like "instruction decoder"
The SLU cards I can use in my 11/23's and 11/73's. I noticed that the back
of the cpu cabinet someone had labelled the ports - some said terminal and
some said "typesetter". Any idea what these cards are and if they're
usable
in other dec systems? I left the QIC tape drive behind
and they said there
was more where that rack came from - anyone interested or is this junk?
Trash pickup is on wednesday so let me know before then :)
Jay West
8822
days inactive
8823
days old
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jbmcb＠hotmail.com -
west＠tseinc.com