Masscomp computers?

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Wed Nov 24 07:33:56 2004

On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 08:15 -0500, Joe R. wrote:
> >Masscomp did indeed make multi-cpu machines,
>
> Yeap, each chassis can have up to four CPU cards. I think the dual
> chasssis machines could have up to eight but I'd have to check on that.

I'll have to pull the cover off our one sometime just to see what it has
inside. Would be annoying to find it's just a shell (although it's heavy
enough that there's concrete in there if not :)


> >and also had an os called RTU (Real Time Unix).
>
> Yeap, I just sent that manual to Al K. I have at least three other
> manuals here.

Have you (or someone else) got OS media, just in case we need copies for
ours?

> The CPU in mine is 68020. It's card looks similar to Multibus but is
> longer and has different connector. (I'll post pictures later.) It plugs
> into the SMI bus. There's also a Multibus chassis in them for the IO cards
> AND there's also STD+ card sockets in them for data acquisition cards. STD+
> is an enhancment of the regular STD bus. Some of them also had VME sockets!
> The use of four different busses really surprised me.

Heh, that does seem to be slight overkill.

> >They had early successes as graphics/cad workstations,
> >so yes they had mice.
>
> Some did, some didn't. Some only used termials but others had graphics
> capabilities. I think mine all just used terminals.

Shame, that. Ours has graphical capability; four BNC sockets on the back
and a big CAD monitor with it (which is what drew me to the system - one
of my big interests is in graphics workstations)

> Masscomp was bought by Concurrent,
> >so there used to be some info on the concurrent users
> >group web pages at www.ccuruser.org. That seems gone now,
> >but archive.org might help you dig up some old stuff there.
>
> There'll be lots more there soon!

yay! :-)

> It uses an Excelan EXOS 201 Intelligent Multibus Ethernet Controller. I
> have manuals for it. One of them has already gone to Al.

I wonder if that's the same one as in my NCR Tower (which is also
multibus for the IO boards). EXOS rings a bell.

cheers

Jules
Received on Wed Nov 24 2004 - 07:33:56 GMT