I went to the junk yard today again. They obviously don't like my intrusion
(well, they wouldn't notice mine, since I clean up after going through their
stuff, but some others are not as discrete...), because they had welded a mesh
of iron bars in the opening in the fence. Not that it would stop us, we still
managed to bring a 20", a 17" and a 14" monitor out, along with all sorts of
junk. I didn't catch much this time, though.
The most interesting items were a 9->15 pin VGA cable, and a pretty folder
describing the advanced comfort of the Philips VCR system. =)
Well, you can't be lucky each day, can you? Guess again!
After coming home, I was hungry and thought I'd take a walk to the 7-Eleven,
when I noticed that a skip some blocks from home contained a light table. I
proceeded to investigate, when I found below the table a big box with an
amazing number of TTY ports. After dragging it out, I was in for a surprise -
it was a DIAB DS90-20!
According to my investigations, this should be a VME-based 68020 multiuser
system, running DNIX, a System III or System V version. Its predecessor DS90-
00 was also known as the Luxor ABC-9000, running ABCnix. =)
The forty TTY ports on the back are sealed, so I couldn't find any I/O at all,
until I found the the panel with the TTY ports would swing back to reveal
blanking plates for a number of cards. I think the system has got four TTY
ports, but they're not standard DB25 ports, but D15 ones.
Our Tandberg terminal has got a D15 port in addition to its DB25, could these
be compatible. I think the Tandberg's D15 was listed as being a V.something
port.
In addition to the TTY ports, there's a DIN-4 (?) port and an AC inlet. The
system is turned on, off and reset with a key, which fortunately was still in
the machine's lock. There's also a CEN-50, which leads me to believe that it's
either got SCSI or some queer MFM controller.
I'll have to pay a visit to the company which threw the machine out in order
to see whether they kept any accessories or documentation.
The entire system reminds me of a Stride - big bulking tower, streamer and 5?
FDD, lots of TTYs, VME, m68k, AT&T licence.
More info tomorrow when I'll try to power it on.
UPDATE:
I opened it up today, and could examine it in daylight. It is a SCSI based
system, with a 140 MB full-height Maxtor drive from 1987. Opening it up is a
pleasure. The side panels are removed with some firm force, then you loosen
two screws and swing out panels, one of which contains the motherboard. The
mobo contains a 68450 (some m68k peripheral circuit IIRC), a 68020 CPU, a
68581 MMU and a 68881 FPU. And a whole lot of other things, including some
Zilog chips which I presume contain the SCSI controller. SCSI is good, that
means that it may be easily backed up before I start toying with the OS.
The machine is running right now. The HD is a bit on the noisy side, but I
suppose it could be replaced. The mobo is also fitted with several VME slots,
one of which extends into a cardcage containing three VME slots and four "DB"
slots. The DB slots use a connector similar to the VME, but with only two rows
of pins/sockets, and the cards are only half the height of a Europa card.
Reminds me somewhat of the ABC-bus. There are also two plates for mounting
additional TTYs to the four ones of the motherboard. Don't ask me where they
connect.
Might I add that this looks like an ideal target architecture for NetBSD?
Now, if it only had Ethernet, like later models did...
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
G? med i SUGA, Swedish Usergroup of Amiga!
WWW: http://swedish.usergroup.amiga.tm/
BBS: 08-6582572, telnet://sua.ath.cx:42512
Received on Wed Aug 01 2001 - 08:58:16 BST