MicroVAX I

[Ethan Dicks]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 11:36 PM, robertbeauchamp33--- via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> My mother is moving and her spouse has a MicroVax I he bought new back in 1984 for some crazy amount. I don’t see this model listed in your chart? Can you tell me if there is any value to this machine? He also has two original monitors.

There is some value, since it's in a BA23 and _is_ a VAX, even as slow
as can be.  They are somewhat uncommon because they were only
available for a couple of years unlike most other DEC machines.
Having used one in the mid-80s when they were brand new (and $10,000),
they are quite slow and painful and limited to, I think, various
versions of MicroVMS and VMS 4.x, depending on disk size (MicroVMS
fits on a 30MB disk when the full version would not).  I don't recall
if there is any support for them in VMS 5.x - the max RAM is 4MB
(unlike later Qbus VAXen, the RAM is _on_ the Qbus) but one could
easily put a newer disk controller in there other than the RQDX1 and a
larger disk.  As shipped, though, I don't think the uVAX-I arrived
with a large enough disk for VMS 5.0, at least not without a very
manual, very painful install.

Where is this?  (city?  country?  continent?)

I still have the one from work from 1984 so I'm not in the market, but
people here do want to know.

-ethan