Long-Planned Apollo Rescue Finally Goes Down

From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman_at_theestopinalgroup.com>
Date: Thu Jan 25 07:38:42 2001

I can happily report that a rescue I'd been trying to coordinate
since July finally took place. I'd been hanging out in the USENET
newsgroup comp.sys.apollo for a while, hoping to find someone who
would be willing to donate some Apollo hardware for my collection.

Apollo was formed by people from Prime Computer, and the architecture
of their operating system (Domain OS/Aegis) grew out of issues they
found that they couldn't achieve with PRIMOS (notably, a virtual
memory that can be shared across the network).

So, it came to pass that a software engineer from Cummins Engine
(maker of the diesel engines used in Dodge Ram trucks) contacted me.
He was helping to decommission the Apollos that Cummins had been
using. Way back in July, he set aside the following items, which
I was to go and pick up. However, at the time, my car was facing
imminent breakdown (which finally occurred in October), so we went
back and forth looking for a way to make the transfer. Finally, he
decided (after being reallocated after a reduction in force) to bail
and head to Kalifornia. Befre leaving, he decided he'd just bring
the systems from Columbus (Indiana) down hre to Clarksville to me!

Not just a rescue, but I got them to bring the systems to me!

Anyway, here's a thumbnail list of what I got:

        one DN2500 workstation
        two HP425 workstations
        one Apollo 19 inch monochrome monitor
        one HP 19 inch monochrome monitor
        three apollo keyboards with Logitech mice
        an external shoebox hard drive for the DN2500 that
                contains the latest version of DomainOS, 10.4
                and a virgin registry
        an external shoebox containing an Exabyte 8mm drive
                (probably an 8200)
        two apollo token ring cards, four interface boxes, and
                four boxes that let you switch nodes in and out
                of the ringnet

All in very clean shape! The HP 425s each contain two hard drives,
and have Ethernet built-in (thinnet & AUI). The DN2500 has a single
ISA slot which currently contains an Ethernet card. I'll be saving
the token ring hardware and will play with it, but will likely use
the Ethernet on a regular basis.

The only glaring ommission: No paper documentation.

The newsgroup has a very well-developed FAQ, and there are many
resources on the web for Apollos. Th first thing I'll need to do
is to back up the DN2500's shoebox drive, so that I can put it
back in the virgin state if need be.

Personally, I'm grateful that the engineer took the time to put
a fresh OS on the system; I know that some of you like rescueing
systems taken directly out of service, so that ther actual day-to-
day use can be documented and preserved. However, while I think
that's cool, I think I prefer hat I've got.

The engineer had intended to help me set up the systems and get
them running, but I really don't have room to do that right now,
nor do I have the time.

These systems almost don't qualify (the 425's were made in '93),
but it's a dead architecture, so anything so consigned should
probably be exempt from the 10-year rule.

Well, that's all for now; I've had no prior experience with the
Apollos, just considered them kindred to the Primes, so I was
someday going to have to have them.

Regards,
-doug quebbeman
Received on Thu Jan 25 2001 - 07:38:42 GMT