heck, are 11/785s extinct?

From: James Rice <jrice_at_texoma.net>
Date: Wed Jul 25 16:47:17 2001

About 18 months ago, I was given a Vax 11/780, complete with almost 60
Dec terminals, Dec laser and dot matrix printers, hubs, connecting
devices, disks, tapes, manuals, and a couple of MicroVax boxes,
software, in other words the whole works. Since I only collect micros
and some Unix workstations, I posted it's availability and the inventory
of hardware that I could see in a short trip through the computer
room. The Vax hardware had just come off the DEC maintance contract a
couple of months before and had just been serviced. After posting to the
list I only got one response and at the time I was living in an
apartment and didn't have room to store the system. Finally it was
dumpstered. The same fate fell to the two PDP11's that were removed
from service a couple on months later.

James

"Carlini, Antonio" wrote:
>
> >more to the point :-). I had very little feedback. One from one
>
> There may not be many 11/78x machines in hobbyist hands.
> There may not be too many corporations subscribed to
> this list :-)
>
> It took me many years (admittedly in the UK) before
> I came across a uPDP-11. I've never seen a Robin (hint,hint...).
> You need to be patient. In my experience, the docs and
> hardware will come along at different times - never
> turn down an incomplete package (I'm preaching to
> the converted here since you have the innards
> already !).
>
> How many VAX-11/78x machines were produced?
> These days you expect that thousands of any machine would
> be sold (except maybe the specialised supercomputers).
> I believe that for the VAX 9000 series, only 400-500 made
> it out of the door. The same order of magnitude may well
> be true for the VAX-11/78x systems.
>
> How long have people been collecting such
> large machines? I don't have the room -
> I could not realistically find room for a VAX 4000
> right now, never mind anything bigger!
>
>
> >9 months ago :-). However, I have indication that my 11/785 boards
> >won't work on the 11/780 backplane. So, I'm still desperately
> >looking for a 11/785. I would be a lot more patient if I saw those
>
> I don't know anything about the 11/780 => 11/785
> upgrade but I would be surprised if the backplane
> had to be replaced.
>
> >in the first place. Where are they?
>
> They may all be in dealers wharehouses and defence
> sites and nuclear power stations. I did hear of three
> being decommissioned in the UK a few years ago
> but that's about it.
>
> >get some leads to follow. The underlying assumption being that
> >there is one 11/785 recycled as scrapmetal every month that I don't
> >find it.
>
> I suspect the underlying assumption is just that
> there are not that many of the beasts still around.
> I guess by the time I have the room for one of
> these, there won't be any left!
>
> Antonio
Received on Wed Jul 25 2001 - 16:47:17 BST