what is a Vax Station 2000?

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Thu Apr 9 17:28:36 1998

Hi Soe,

< I went to a thrift store today and found something called a VaxStation
<2000. Does anyone know what it is? I *think* the model number on it is
<1410F-A. It's a box about 12 x 12" and 10" thick and has a handle on th

VS2000 aka baby vax. Nice machines using the first generation micorvax
chip. They can be found with up to 14mb of ram but 6-12mb are typical
and only 4meg needed to run VMS or Ultrix. They can take RX33(1.2mb)
floppy and or any MFM drive like RD31(20mb st225), RD32(40mb st251),
RD52(quantum D540 31mb), RD53 (micropolus1325 71mb) or RD54(maxtor 2990
159mb). There is a scsi bus but the rom boot only knows an oddball tk50
off that. The base machine did hires(1280x1024) video to a 19in mono
monitor and there was color too. By shorting pins 8,9 of the db9 port
you could connect a terminal instead. VMS is available via hobby license
and is a very robust and sophisticated operating system and will fit on
a single RD54 or can be made to fit in an RD53 without decwindows. There
is a fair amount of free software for VMS as well.

Also most have 10b2 eithernet unless someone robbed the lance card.

I have three of them, I call them a half cubic foot vax. The taller ones
have a base that addes expansion connectors for a like sized box that can
hone another MFM disk, floppy or TK50 tape.

Generally speaking I find them for free to maybe 15$ as they are on par
with slower 386s meaning they run all the VAX software but it's only .9
vups. Despite that I've used one to serve several users and notes
conferences (like a newsgroup). Their upside is that the power needs
are only 160w at 110v and they are small.

Allison
Received on Thu Apr 09 1998 - 17:28:36 BST