On Tue, 19 Nov 2002, Geoff Roberts wrote: There's got to be an interesting story behind that particular incident. -brian.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Chase" <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org> To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 2:22 PM Subject: Re: Moving a VAX 6000 Not terribly. Vax 6000-310 and TU81+ went to scrappers. As did another Vax 6000-310 from another site. They were using a crane to move it from the delivery truck to the floor of the stripping shed. Rigger didn't put the loop on properly and it fell off while being lifted over a pile of big heavy gear, hit that, bounced back and hit the side of the truck, caromed off and landed inverted on the concrete somewhat compressed. Tore off the front door and sides etc... The interior structure didn't move. Very solid. I still have what's left of it. I removed the card cages and psu's for spare parts and the cabinet is out in the shed. We bought the remaining 310 and the TU81+ and they gave us the bent one. The good 310 is now a 6430 and the TU81+ is still in use at work here attached to our 6440. Cheers Geoff

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey Sharp" <jss(a)subatomix.com> To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 5:43 PM Subject: Re: Moving a VAX 6000 into I Glad it all worked out. What sort of drives are they? Cheers Geoff in Oz

Keene College in (NH?) is having an auction, bids must be in by this Friday, some really good stuff, Apple, HP, Dell, AT&T Stanlan, Asante, Photocopiers, Mailers and furniture: http://www.keene.edu/purchasing/surpluslist.cfm

Hi Michael, Ran across it by accident while doing some googling.... Thought some people on the list would find it useful. Curt ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Nadeau" <menadeau(a)attbi.com> To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2002 5:29 PM Subject: Re: Equipment in Keene College....

On Wed, 20 Nov 2002, Geoff Reed wrote: Heh. I have 2 firewalls-in-training here that are 233/64MB/2.4G and 2 NICs. I gave $40 each. Doc

I don't think there's a "hard-wired" master in a VAX 6000 like there is in (say) a VAX 8250. There's an algorithm for determining which CPU is the boss (based on something like slot number). Rule #1 with the 6K (in my experience) is to reseat the boards. If that doesn't do it, post the failure details. Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org

On 2003.02.28 06:33 Jeffrey Sharp wrote: LTIC? 4BSD developement on the VAX stoped at the late 4.3BSD age. Once I got 4.3BSD-Reno running on MV 3900 (KA655) and AFAIK this was the last CSRG BSD release with working VAX support as 4.4BSD/VAX is broken. Reno was at the time of the VAX6k... There are some bits of VAX6k / XMI support in NetBSD, but it is very likely that it is not enough to get NetBSD running on a VAX6k. It seams that the lack of VAX6k support in NetBSD is mainly caused by insufficient docs about XMI. I know that they have lots of VAX6k machines at northern Sweden where the NetBSD/VAX portmaster lives... -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/

On 2003.02.28 19:26 Antonio Carlini wrote: [VAX6k / XMI docs] OK. Time to move to a different house and get a VAX6k. ;-) Well, I think you know that the person in question is Ragge. Maybe someone should ask about VAX6000 support on port-vax. Maybe there is somthing going on that I am not aware of. I think there was never any sort of effort of getting NetBSD on the VAX 7000 / DEC 7000 due to very undocumented hardware. -- tsch??, Jochen Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/

On Sat, 1 Mar 2003, Jochen Kunz wrote: Ragge has XMI docs? I could use them. I have a VAX6600 and a DS5840 here that I would like to work NetBSD on. Is there any difference between Laserbus and Turbolaser other than clock rate? The AS8200/8400 are supported under NetBSD. Would it be possible to leveredge any of that work for 7000 support? Peace... Sridhar

I think the VAX and DEC 7000 (and 10000) series are all Laserbus. The DEC 4000-600 and -700 are indeed Futurebus. Those and the DECnis are the only Futurebus boxes DEC built AFAIK. Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org

On Sat, 1 Mar 2003, Jochen Kunz wrote: Cool. I'll ping Johnny. I'll ask. The VAX/DEC 7000 is definitely Laserbus. I have one of them here. I don't really feel the need to try two big projects at once, but if someone has a suggestion as to how I can make the machine available for use to someone else, I'd be willing. Peace... Sridhar

Some time ago the AS8x00 manuals were up on the COMPAQ website, but right now I cannot find them. (Alpha tech manuals always seemed much more available than the corresponding VAX and PDP manuals). I don't think I have anythong that describes TLSB in any detail, but if all that changed was the clock frequency, I wouldn't have expected the name to change. OTOH, if you have a VAX or DEC 7000, see what happens if you assume (LSB == TLSB) ... (I didn't realise that NetBSD knew how to run on the bigger Alpha systems, but I've not really kept track as I don't have one!) Antonio -- --------------- Antonio Carlini arcarlini(a)iee.org

Man I've had a great week. Last Monday I went to the U. of Oklahoma surplus department to check out the inventory that would be available for the next day's sale. I saw some IBM unit that looked vaguely interesting, but it hadn't yet been priced. I decided to look for it the next day at the sale. On Tuesday, the IBM thing was nowhere to be seen. I went to an employee and asked, "Where's that big IBM thing?". He didn't seem to understand. "You know, like a mainframe?" I asked. The people at surplus are moderately knowledgeable about computers, but like many, they don't know the difference between 'bigger than a PC' and 'mainframe'. "Yeah, we got a mainframe on eBay," he said. I thought, "Oh great, they've discovered eBay. Just what I needed: several million competitors." I went home to see what they had on eBay. I found this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2068622725&rd=1 Holy cow! A VAXvector 6000-520! But... their reserve was probably around $10K. Yeeeeah. I went back to surplus to ask what would happen when the bid never reached the reserve, but they guy responsible was out for the day. Thursday, I went back and made contact with the guy. He assured me that they would honor the high bid, even if it was below the reserve. He took me back to see the VAX. It was in great shape, with hardly a scratch and very little dust. It had two scalar processors, one vector processor, 128MB RAM, DEMNA (ethernet), KLESI-BB (tape), 2 DMB32 (serial/parallel), and CI clustering interface. There was a separate SA900 disk cabinet, and it had 12 RA7x SDI drives in 3 SA70 (?) enclosures. I wanted it. I made note of the tag on the VAX, which indicated that it was surplused somehow related to the IT department, so I proceeded to the IT offices, which inhabit the second floor of the EL building, above the computer science offices. I've always wondered what was up there, and I was glad to have an excuse to find out. I explored the entire second floor looking for some sort of receptionist, but didn't find one. Finally, I accosted a hall-walker, and it went like this: Me: "I found this really old, really big computer down at surplus, and I'm looking for informa--" HW: "You need to go to the helpdesk in Felgar 300 for help with your computer. We don't do that here." Me: "You don't understand. It's really big, like five feet tall and it weighs several hundred pounds. Someone here--" HW: "We don't help students with their computers here. Go to Felgar." Me: "This isn't a student computer; it was surplused from University Computing Services." HW: "Hmm. We haven't been called that for maybe ten years." Me: "Right. This is a *mainframe* [sic]. One of your people would have been responsible for this machine." HW: "I don't know who that would be. That was a long time ago." Me: "OK, do you have anybody here that fits the term 'old timer'? Someone who keeps the old stuff from breaking? Does anybody have reel-to-reel tapes in his office?" HW: "Hmm. Maybe <name>... What kind of computer is this?" Me: "It's a VAX. It's got--" HW: "Oh yeah, go to <name>. He'll help you." Me: "Thanks." So I went to <name>'s office, and BINGO, he's the VAX guy. He knew the VAX that was at surplus and told me it was just removed from the machine room. I told him about classiccmp and the enthusiast community, and he was quite amused. I asked him if there was any software or documentation for this machine that he no longer needed, and he pointed to a large bookcase full of manuals. "We can't do anything with the software, but I no longer need that entire bookcase." I thereby scored: (0) A 6'Hx10'W superwall of VAX, VMS, and layered product manuals. There is an orange wall, a grey wall, a white wall, a multicolored wall, another white wall, and so on. I don't remember how far back it goes, but the latest wall is from OpenVMS 7.2. I will pick these up on Friday. (1) About 100 blank magtapes, as soon as <name> runs them through the bulk eraser. To top off this generousity, <name> pointed me to <name2>, who made all of the College of Engineering's PDP-11 purchases back in the day. So I went to see <name2> over in Carson. He's known among the students for his flamboyant lecture style and for his leadership of the electric car team. He told me that he purchased an 11/34, an 11/70, 11/44, and an 11/23, and that they were all gone now (actually, by 5 years ago). He did, however, tell me the name and employer of the guy that used to be this region's DEC representative. He said, "If anyone around here has that sh*t lying around in their garage, it's him." Sunday afternoon, I got in the high bid of $102.50 on the auction. Today, I paid for and picked up the machine as detailed in another post. During this process, the boss of the surplus department came up to me: B: "I'm glad you paid us for that, because if you didn't, we'd have to pay someone to haul it off to state surplus." Me: "State surplus?" B: "Yeah, that's where all our big stuff ends up anyway." Me: "So that's why, in 1.5 years, I've never seen any of this stuff for sale here?" B: "It all goes to state surplus." Me: "Can I buy stuff there?" B: "Yeah, they have an auction like every two weeks." Me: "If you get big computer stuff like this in, could you hold it for me?" B: "Theoretically, but you'll have to check back often." So, in summary, I scored the following this week: (0) VAXvector 6000-520 (1) SA900 Storage Array (2) Superwall of manuals (3) Promise of blank magtapes (4) Name of former DEC representative (5) Knowledge of the state surplus department (6) Knowledge of how to find big stuff at OU surplus -- Jeffrey Sharp