VAX 780 on eBay

[Mark J. Blair]

> On Jan 2, 2022, at 4:20 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On 1/2/2022 6:21 PM, Mark J. Blair via cctalk wrote:
>> I am seriously lusting after that VAX-11/780 system on eBay
> I keep thinking about it, but no. The 780 was neat from a historical perspective, and the 785 at UMBC (UMBC5) ran Ultrix (and was on the ARPANET, not the crappy Bitnet the 8600's were on) but the 780 was really slow. I have a Microvax II here that would equal it CPU speed-wise, and the running of the main memory on the SBI was cool for the 782 option but was pretty slow.

The VAX-11/780 may be very slow, but it is still still quite a bit faster than my 11/730. That being said, the 11/730 captures the look and feel of that era of VAX in a much smaller volume and with a lot lower energy cost.

> Now a Vax 8600 or 8650.... That would be interesting. Partially due to the Jupiter angle, partially because it was the fastest MASSBUS system with true pdp11 compatibility.

Oh, heck yeah! I'd love to have an 8600 or 8650, and I would see them as the logical conclusion of the VAX-11/7xx line despite the model number change.


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Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net>
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