Anyone here familar with Motorolda PowerStack computers?

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
Date: Sat Jan 10 15:32:55 2004

At 08:15 AM 1/10/04 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi, Joe,
>
>*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
>
>On 09-Jan-04 at 18:46 Joe wrote:
>
>>I picked up two of these yesterday. I searched the net but didn't find
>>much information about them but I did find enough so that I know what they
>>are. However one of the ones that I have doesn't have the rounded top.
>>Instead the top is flat and it has a rectangular opening in it and a
>>circuit board sticking up into the opening. It looks like it was made for
>>an expansion chassis to mate with. Anybody know more about that?
>
> Yes indeed. I used to service the 'PowerStack' VME version systems.

Hi Bruce. I haven't heard from you for a while. These aren't VME. I've
heard of a PowerStack II. Possible they were VME. These have a riser board
on the LH side (similar to NLX) with several PCI slots on that and one
short propriatary slot that the floppy drive plugs into. There's also a
riser board at the rear of the machine that the ports are mounted on. There
are three slots for CD and/or hard drives. Those also plug into the rear
riser board. Everything else is on the motherboard.


>
> What you have there is one of two possible configurations. One system
type was made with a PowerPC 603 chip, if I recall, and the other was done
with a VMEbus, designed to run with MVME187 or 197 CPU boards.
>
> The expansion configuration you describe is exactly that. The PowerStack
series were expanded by popping off the cover, and locking in another
module. I think you could have at least four, possibly a max of six (it has
been at least 11 years since I've seen one). They use SCSI exclusively for
peripheral expansion. No Idiotic Drive Electronics in these monsters!
>
> OS-wise, they were both designed to run with Motorola's System V Unix
release. I don't recall if other OS's will run on them.

   Yeap, AIX, FreeBSD (I think) and Debian Linux. I think there was one
more but I forget.


>
> That's all I remember. Perhaps others will pipe up with corrections or
additions.

    OK thanks.

     Joe
>
>
>
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy,
>Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com
>kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m
>"If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with
surreal ports?"
>
>
>
Received on Sat Jan 10 2004 - 15:32:55 GMT

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