VAX 11/780s - Masscomp - Valid equipment available

From: Rob Kapteyn <kapteynr_at_cboe.com>
Date: Mon Jan 14 16:28:26 2002

Finally -- a nice haul in my area.
BUT I WAS ON VACATION !!!!

Is any of this still available ?
It ALL looks interesting to me.
I am in Chicago and I have a truck, and a lot of storage space (with loading dock).

-Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Auringer [SMTP:auringer_at_tds.net]
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 6:53 AM
To: Classic Computer Mailing List
Subject: VAX 11/780s - Masscomp - Valid equipment available

Hello all,

Along with the Astronautics ZS-1 machines I posted about earlier, we
have some other equipment available. I have someone interested in one of
the 11/780 machines and possible others. As with the ZS-1 machines, the
time frame isn't very long. Again, we are closing this facility and the
equipment will be scrapped if not rescued.

1 DEC 11/780 (3 wide cabinet) currently up and running 4.2 BSD
  3rd cabinet has a Ven-tel plugin modem rack w/~10 modems
1 rack containing 4 Fujitsu Eagle drives (one drive is off-line due
  to increasing errors)
1 Fujitsu 9-track tape drive in 2 wide cabinet (not quite as tall as the
  VAX cabinet)(This is a nice auto loading drive, there is a second
  one available with two drives from a non-VAX system)
1 DEC TE16 9-track tape drive (1 wide cabinet)
1 Fujitsu line printer
1 DECWRITER III printing terminal as console

1 DEC 11/780 (3 wide cabinet) currently down but was running fine
  when turned off (VMS)
3 DEC RP07 drives (each the size of a washing machine on steroids!)
1 DEC TU78 9-track tape drive
1 Scicards design station (This is a dedicated color graphics
  terminal used for printed circuit board (PCB) layout)
  I am told the tube was a little on the fuzzy side.
1 Benson photo plotter (we used this exclusively to print out PCB
  artwork for checking)
1 Dataproducts line printer
1 DECWRITER III printing terminal as console
 
3 Valid Systems m68k based Multibus systems. Each system has several
  dedicated mono graphics cards to drive multiple design stations.
  Each system is in a half-height rack which contains the Multibus
  rack, an 8" Fujitsu fixed disk drive and the slot loading 9-track
  tape drive. I am unsure of the status of these systems. I believe
  they were running when shut down, but I have doubts about the drives.
6 or more of the Valid Scaldstation design stations. Each includes a
  table with built-in digitizer and a 19" green monochrome graphics
  monitor. These systems were used primarily for schematic capture,
  but ran a full blown UNIX, so I always enjoyed reading news on the
  "big screen". :)

1 Masscomp m68k based system
  This system is also Multibus based and resides in a pair of 5' high
  racks. One rack contains the multibus chassis and a pair of Fujitsu
  drives. The second rack houses the 9-track tape drive and a third
  8" Fujitsu drive. This machine was only lightly used when I signed
  on in 1989, and shut down shortly thereafter. I have gotten it up
  and running RTU on its ST-506 boot drive, but haven't managed to
  get the Fujitsus online.

7 Masscomp MC-500 deskside chassis
  These are also Multibus based m68k systems. These run the same OS as
  systems above. They have an internal 5-1/4" floppy and ST-506 fixed
  drive. There are a bunch of the monochrome graphics tubes that go
  along with these units. Actually, it appears like each chassis is
  designed to drive a pair of the graphics terminals. I have one of
  these boxes that I did a clean install of the RTU OS. The other 6
  are in varying states of repair. I think there are enough bits to
  assemble at least 3 more complete systems.

2 DEC MicroVax II in a 19"
  There is also a rack mounted chassis with a pair of SMD drives.
  Each of the MVII has a SMD controller card. Both of the boot drives
  are dead and I don't have a way to format replacements. I would
  like to hang on to these if I can manage to get them home without
  doing myself harm.

1 Tek 4014-1 graphics terminal w/hard copy unit. The terminal works
  fine, but I haven't had a chance to test the hard copy unit. I would
  like to hang on to this unit, but moving it is definately a two person
  and a truck kind of thing. So I may have to let it go. :(

? StorageTek 9-Track drives. 110V operation. How many of these I have
  depends on the fate of the ZS-1 machines. I have a couple now, and
  will have several more if the ZS machines are scrapped.

Large quantities of documentation. Over a dozen UNIX programmers
manuals in metal desktop racks. Complete documentation sets for VMS,
gray and orange binders. I have a box with complete unopened
docs for a later version (don't remember off-hand which version) of
VMS than we had ever installed. Documentation for several revisions
of SunOS4. If I were to walk through the building, I could easily
double this list. Basically we have just about everything!

Thanks for listening,

        Jon

Jon Auringer
auringer_at_tds.net
Received on Mon Jan 14 2002 - 16:28:26 GMT