Being inspired by the likes of Carl Friend, Tim Shoppa, and others,
Friday I joined "Club Nova". I now have a DG Nova 3 (CS/40). I will
not say that it was a pleasure to move since the rack was full and
weighed about 400 pounds (the other stuff was about 200 pounds)*. (In
retrospect removing parts from the rack would have made it much easier.)
A Brother-in-law with a truck is a gift from heaven.
The machine is big, beautiful, and mine.
I have not taken a complete inventory, but I know that the haul included:
a disk unit which has a fixed disk and removable disk packs (CDC I think)
about 10 packs
a tape unit (Cipher 1600bpi) (with about 10 tapes),
a printer,
a terminal,
20 or so pieces of of documentation (mostly COBOL related)
a small box of cables
a few "extra" boards.
(I'll try to put together a more exact list.)
Unfortunately, while there are some sales and technical documents none of
them cover the Nova 3**. There is a good deal of microNova technical
and sales literature. The guy also had a microNova at some time in the
past, I wonder if whoever has it now also has all of the Nova 3 docs.
The machine has been sitting for the last 7 years and has not been
powered up in that time, but (everyone sing along) it was working the
last time it was run.
Now for the questions:
Does anyone have hardware (or any) documents on the Nova 3?
What is the best way to the machine running again? I am a software guy,
but I have a cheezy Radio Shack multimeter and know which end of a
soldering iron is hot.
Which parts are most likely to fail after sitting unused for long periods.
Which parts are likely to get me killed our injured if I am not careful?
Basically this is my first exposure to minis so everything will be
and adventure. Any advice or information is welcome.
Thanks,
--pec
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saved From The Dumpster Collection:
http://www.crl.com/~pcoad/machines.html
Moving soon to a new location.
*Things always weigh more than what people estimate, usually by 100%.
Sellers always guess low and buyers always guess high.
**Anyone notice that in many sales literature pictures for minis there
are:
1-2 people sitting at terminals (usually smiling)
1 man in a suit looking at a piece of paper (usually fan-fold)
1 woman also looking at the paper
I've seen this in both DEC and DG stuff.
Received on Sun Sep 28 1997 - 04:15:19 BST