rarest computers. was: RE: Xerox Alto Restoration + Emulation

From: Patrick Finnegan <finnegpt_at_purdue.edu>
Date: Tue Aug 3 20:28:40 2004

<Can't find the beginning of this thread, so I'm gonna shove my response
here.>

I've got a few "rare" machines, but they mostly seem to come out of some
sort of "scientific instrumentation". A vector-based computer that
processed NMR data - an Aspect 3000, some machines made by Nicolet and
others, etc.

Some of my favorite "rarer" machines are my General Automation SPC-16/40
and /45 (which are neither complete nor functional right now ): It was
a machine targeted where the Data General Nova was targeted (a general
purpose 16bit machine in the early 70s).

Encore Multimax - a massively SMP UNIX box with NS32332s (or 32232's?)
that went up to 40 processors and 128MB of memory in the late 80s, and
ran a Mach-based Unix. I've not yet gotten that up and running, but
I've got install tapes and documentation for it that the SPC-16s don't.

Another uncommon machine (in model, not in processor architecture) is my
MicroVAX 3520. I'd love to pick up more processor cards for it at some
point and see how many I can get it to happily run with.

My favorite machines, though definitely not all that rare are my
VAX-11/750 (first ...and only for now... UNIBUS machine) and my IBM
S/390 Gen3 9672-RC4 (which is only 1.5 years away from being "classic"
by the 10 year rule). As soon as I get more unpacked into my new home,
I'll have some time to set up my 11/750 and the Multimax to try and
play with them.

This reminds me I need to get back to updating my website sometime.

Pat
-- 
The Computer Refuge                   --  http://computer-refuge.org
Purdue University Research Computing  --  http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs
Received on Tue Aug 03 2004 - 20:28:40 BST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:36:32 BST