New VAX 6000 toys.

From: Chris Craft <ccraft_at_netgenius.org>
Date: Sat Oct 19 16:32:07 2002

*DeLurk* I'm totally green with envy! I want pictures! (The largest VAX I
have is a 4000/500)

-Chris, RetroComputing Nut

On Monday 14 October 2002 17:19, you wrote:
> I've recently acquired two of those rackmount VAX 6000's that were being
> sold on eBay. I paid more than I should've, but given the nature of the
> systems, I'd have gone higher. Though they're still hefty, they are
> very small and light in comparison to the full sized VAX 6000's.
> They're still built like tanks, but I'm able to move one easily by
> myself. Well, at least as long as I don't have to pick it up off the
> ground. The other huge plus with these is that they're already wired up
> for single-phase power--no hacks are required. The systems have Hubbell
> Twist-Lock connectors: L6-20 (20A _at_ 250V). It'll be trivial to hook
> these up to household dryer circuits in the US. In their present
> configurations, they've each a single 6000-400 CPU, 384MB of RAM, three
> XMI ethernet modules, an XMI FDDI module, and two XMI CI-bus modules.
> My employer is planning on tossing out some of their old FDDI
> concentrators, so it all works out rather nicely.
>
> I'm still trying to determine if the XMI card cage is the original XMI
> or if it's XMI-2. Looking at the back of it, some of the metal dividers
> in the backplane are stamped with a date in 1991; this is after DEC
> started producing the XMI-2 based VAX 6000 systems. If these do support
> the 500 and 600 series CPUs, I'm planning on turning at least one into
> the world's smallest VAX 6660. The other will be a VAX 6420 with two
> vector processors. MUH HA HAH!!!
>
> Another interesting thing with these systems is that they've Intel asset
> tags affixed to them. I've often heard it stated that Intel operated
> the production control systems at their fabs with VAX/VMS systems. I
> don't know if these systems served in that capacity or not, but the guy
> selling them is located only a few miles from Intel's Chandler, AZ
> campus where several of Intel's fabs are located.
>
> As a side note, I'm often disappointed with the packing jobs of the
> bulkier gear I buy online. That's not the case with this seller. He
> seems to be well equipped for shipping heavy items. The rackmount unit
> was packed in a large box with thick foam surrounding it. The box was
> also secured to wooden pallet and wrapped in plastic. It took me about
> half an hour to unpack everything. He really went crazy with the
> plastic wrap.
>
> I believe he has more of these, three have already been put up on eBay.
> I've got my two, so I'm done throwing money at them; I expect the others
> will go for considerably less.
>
> -brian.
Received on Sat Oct 19 2002 - 16:32:07 BST