Value of a small VAX farm

From: healyzh_at_aracnet.com <(healyzh_at_aracnet.com)>
Date: Wed Mar 7 20:52:30 2001

> Someone earlier in this thread said that they were often given away
> these days.

I think that was me. They've basically got no commercial value (outside of
any rare cards they might contain). If you can find out about a company
wanting to get rid of one you might have a good shot if you simply offer to
deinstall it and haul it away for free!

> (At least in the US) so a word on the list might be worthwhile.
> They are probably the only really large vaxen that it is practical to
> run in
> a home environment for any length of time. The 400's and above are
> quite fast
> compared to the Microvaxen that are about, and they do SMP. Also much
> easier
> to add/subtract adapters from without fiddling with grant cards as in
> Q-Bus boxes.

Unless someone is wanting a system because of the hardware I'd have to
recommend getting either a VAXstation/MicroVAX 3100 series, or a
VAXstation 4000 series system if they want a VAX. If they're in it for
OpenVMS I'd really recommend going for a good Alpha. I'm taking several
things into consideration with this comment.

        1. Power to run the system
        2. The amount of physical space it will occupy
        3. Obtaining reliable Hard Drives
        4. Being able to connect a CD-ROM drive

Both #3 and #4 take having a SCSI Bus into account. If you're on the West
Coast of the US then #1 is likely to be a concern right now. As for #2,
what hobbyist has enough room :^)

If I was to go for a big VAXen, I'd probably look for either a 4000 or 7000
series that would fit in a standard 19" Rack, and talk to SCSI Disks. I've
been wanting something like that, but with the cost of electricity going up
I don't think I want to do that any time soon!

Besides in all honesty I prefer a nice DEC PWS with 24bit colour graphics,
100Mb Ethernet and nice fast SCSI disks for running OpenVMS. Now if only
said system had a good 24bit graphics card instead of the piece of garbage
it currently uses! I don't recommend Elsa Gloria cards for a VMS box!

                                Zane
Received on Wed Mar 07 2001 - 20:52:30 GMT