Restoring a PC Server 500 P/390

[Adam Thornton]

> On May 14, 2018, at 11:29 PM, Dave Wade <dave.g4ugm at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> On Behalf Of Adam Thornton
>> via cctalk
>> Sent: 15 May 2018 03:03
>> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
>> Subject: RE: Restoring a PC Server 500 P/390
>> 
>> I Frankensteined a P/390 together out of a P/325 server and the PCI P/390
>> card back in the day.
>> 
> 
> I am told the PCI card is rather choosy about which servers it will run in. The system came with most of a P330 as well, but no case.


It is pretty picky.  It did not run in a whitebox PC I had at the time, but the PC Server 325 was close enough to its expected host that it was happy.  I would guess that any of the IBM x86 server machines from the right general era would work.

That machine now lives at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle, although I do not know if they have it available for use.

> 
> 
> It’s the RAID card that’s the problem, and it seems to have always been temperamental. Did you use RAID in your P/325?


I don’t think I did.  Have you tried just putting a different (OS/2-supported) disk controller in and just not doing RAID?

> 
>> 
>> I used mine to run VM/CMS and Linux (under VM) quite well.
>> 
> 
> I was thinking of trying Linux. I assume you ran Debian? 


Indeed I did, although also SLES.  I assume you found my NASPA article on Debian on 390 from 2004?

Adam