Looking for VAX FAQs

From: Ethan Dicks <erd_at_infinet.com>
Date: Wed Jul 8 06:12:09 1998

> I don't know how 'official' it is, but my 11/730 came with a BA11-K, a
> sheilded cable with 3 header sockets on each end, a set of cabinet kits
> to plug it into, and the associated internal cables/paddleboards. I
> believe it is an official setup, and I think I have the DEC installation
> instructions for it somewhere.

Wow! When I was using a production 11/730, we _never_ had anything that
fancy. We just strung the tape cable out of the side.
 
> > Good luck. It's a VAX, but the doggiest VAX there is. At least it sucks
> > less than 15 amps.
>
> It's also one of the 2 VAXen (The other being the 11/780) that's almost
> all standard components, so it can be repaired and kept running. And I
> don't have space for an 11/780...

One of the 11/730 boards (I forget the M number) uses 4 2901 bit-slice
processors. At that VAX shop, we burned through several sets of boards
over the years, it being cheaper to buy a used VAX at the time than get
a single board repaired at depot prices. I scavenged the 2901's from
one board to stick in a friend's BattleZone (6502 with 16-bit vector
co-processor made from a pair of 2901's, et al.).

It may be repairable, but it's still dirt slow. We used to use ours to
link our product under VMS 5 (the VMS 4.x product was compiled and linked
on our "fast" computer, a 11/750 (which I still have in storage)).

-ethan
Received on Wed Jul 08 1998 - 06:12:09 BST

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