The collected works of leaknoil - Page 1

These are actually kind of cool boxes. You need to find the deskside front panel and lose the rackmount version. The one I have has one. There are also graphics cards for them. Mine has a 2d version although I've never actually hooked it up to a monitor. Has a EVC connector and I don't have an adapter.

It is amazing how heavy it is actually. Way heavier then it looks. Mines a 280/2. Dual 180mhz pa-8000. I really need to find a EVC adapter and give its graphics a try.

You got me curious so, I opened it up and looked inside. It appears to be something called a HP A4450A Visualize-EG card and it uses the HSC connection. There isn't much on the board actually. Especially for when it was made. I would bet its pretty limited in capability.

Here's a picture of one. Mine is identical. Missing IC's and all.

D-Series are servers. You can tell by the giant 6 foot tall rack his came in

Mine has "Turbo HSC" silkscreened at that connector. Not that I imagine it makes any difference at all.

I saw a couple when I was trying to figure out what it was. They wanted $50 or so. That is about ten times more then I'd probably pay for one. You also have to find a EVC to svga adapter and the HP ones seem to be fetching $40 as well.

That's nifty. Thanks for the tip.

I'm just confused by the prices. I was looking for something to run VMS and I'm shocked. Why are all of these heading over 4 digits ? Is there something about these that makes them special ?


http://cgi.ebay.com/Digital-Alphastatio ... 0571307632

http://cgi.ebay.com/DEC-Digital-AlphaSt ... 0326273064

I don't get it. 233Mhz Alpha boxes are worth over a grand ?

That is exactly what I was thinking. I'm just really curious what it might be. It isn't all Alphas. Just seems to be the single one.

I know this is the policy here and its a private board so, the rules are the rules. Not anything to argue about but, I just want to point out that the entire internet would come to a grinding halt, Yelp would shut down, craigslist would shut down, amazon would shut down, ebay would shut down itself, if lawsuits like you describe had a chance in hell of going to court. Because someone threatens to sue or has a hack lawyer threaten to sue doesn't mean they will or can. Defamation is just about impossible to win in court. Yelp and Angie's list couldn't exist if there was any legal grounds for such nonsense. This board is no different. People threaten to sue all the time over just about anything. Its popular with a certain kind of hick crowd in the US. Nothing ever comes of it.

I absolutely agree. The rules are yours to make and if you don't want the hassle who can blame you. I'm just saying that 99.9% of people that threaten to sue on the internet probably wouldn't know how to actually sue if they wanted to. It also costs money to sue and if they lose they get to pay all your court costs and they will lose. Those cases never stand up in court. Next to comparing something to nazi's or hitler "I'm going to sue you" is probably the next most common insult or threat on the internet.

It is actually a lot harder to make defamation stick in the US then in the UK from everything I've read. In the US it is almost impossible to prove libel unless its super crazy made up stuff. You would basically have to make up stuff and resort to nasty personal insults about their family.

So you have any examples of what you're claiming or you just make that completely up ?

That has no relevance about what we were talking about. That is all about the wealthy, claimed terrorists, and tabloid journalism. Actually show a single case of libel involving someone talking bad about a seller. You can't. Where Paris Hilton files her latest libel suit doesn't really concern me.

Show me one case of libel decided against someone complaining about a seller in the UK on a forum. Seems simple enough for me. That is all I am asking. Go for it.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/sys/1826684921.html

I still have a very warm spot in my heart for VS2000. If you decide to get rid of them let me know or someone closer maybe. I am sure you can find a new home easy. VAX stuff has a fanatical following.

I seem to remember you have to run an older stripped down version of vms for the VS2000 that came on TK50s. It may be hard to find an OS for them and I'd wonder if the hobbyist license would work with such an old version of vms. For the VS3100 and newer you can get a free hobbyist license for just about everything. The drives are probably hard to find working anymore since a lot of them were dying or dead ten years ago. Still they are cute little machines. I believe you can get 4 plane color cards for them as add-ons. I think the VS40X board found in some 3100 also fit the 2000. Its about the right size and some descriptions say vs2000/vs3100 for it. Sounds like your has one.

The vs3100 have a switch to change between graphics and serial console. On the first revision its a real pain. You have to remove the motherboard to get at it. In later versions they cut a hole in the back.

To run them graphically you do need the breakout cable. Has RGB bnc and the place to plug in the mouse and keyboard at the end. The are almost impossible to find these days. Hopefully you got some with it.

Right now I'm remembering. Its the 4000 series that has the breakout box off one cable. The AXP 3000 does too I think. The 4000 you can just remove the frame buffer and run serial or stick a resistor between the pins. The AXP 3000 wont even get through post without a keyboard. No way around that as I remember but, i doesnt matter.

I'd go for vms on your boxes. ULTRIX was not really anything very interesting. Just a generic BSD unix. There is no hobbyist license for ULTRIX either. If you want UNIX go for netbsd on those old things. Not that I would. VMS is at least interesting to play with if you haven't before. All the UNIX are pretty similar other then boot up and hardware stuff. I guess that is the point of UNIX really. VMS is way different and fun to mess with for a break from everything else if you haven't before.

Right but, isnt there a problem if you don't have a graphics console first to set the SRM variable ? How do you work around that ?

I just got this a couple days ago. Its useless without the sbus card I didn't get and they sort of sucked to begin with. I had a complete setup in the 90's and it was pretty pointless but, they were pretty rare. At the time Sun people told me it was the last direct attempt by Sun to compete with SGI in the graphics arena. After it failed to make any market inroads Sun gave up forever.

All the chips are kind of pretty to look at anyway. I am sure the gold guys would love to dunk this in acid but, they can't have it. Case is probably going to a 4/110 with a really ugly partial case.

Here's a little usenet post about it:

The host interface was an sbus card with a big wide connector on the back
(looks like a wide SCSI connector, but wider). An interconnect cable
(carrying 32-bit(?) differential parallel data) went from the sbus card to
the GT chassis. It was designed to work with the SS2 and SS10, there's
support to use it as a console, but I do remember it working with other
systems - there was code in the GT startup script (microcode load) to
error out on Galaxy (4/600) systems at one point in time. I'm not sure if
they fixed that in the end.

There were driver files only for sun4c and sun4m, and only up to Solaris
2.4. It will output 76Hz 1280x1024 video, and if you power it up without
any host connected, you should get a sequence of test patterns. You
need the sbus card and cable to get it to do anything meaningful.

It was s-l-o-w for blitting 2D data, though a couple fast clear planes
helped with fills. XGL was the recommend 3D API, and transforms were
taken care of by an onboard i860XR. It did T&L acceleration, not
texturing. From the man page:

NAME

gt - double buffered 24-bit SBus color frame buffer and graphics
accelerator

DESCRIPTION

gt is a 24-bit SBus-based color frame buffer and graphics accelerator.
The frame buffer consists of 108 video memory planes of 1280 .1024 pixels
including 24-bit double buffering, 16 alpha/overlay planes, 24 z-buffer
planes, 10 window ID planes, 8 fast clear planes, and 2 cursor planes. It
provides the standard frame buffer interface defined in fbio(7), paired
with microcode that can be downloaded using gtconfig(1M). Application
acceleration is achieved via the XGL native 3D graphics library.

I think that TGS(?) had OpenGL almost kind of running on it. Ford used a
number of these things for CAD/CAM and had no end of trouble with them -
they finally scrapped them when the ZX and TZX came out (which were much
less buggy). It's an interesting bit of history (and cost something over
$50k brand new) but it was never a great piece of hardware.

I mean more in the ultra high end. The GT cost $50,000 new. What would be a equivalent SGI system ? Reality Engine stuff ?

I have seen those cards listed but, there is still the matter of software. Nothing at all supports this other than OpenWindows and its slow as hell. I tried to use one in the 90's for the hell of it. The 2d stuff was really bad. Windows tore apart as you tried to move them. It was pretty much unusable as a desktop display. All the normal sbus frame buffers were faster for desktop use.

I actually managed to find a sbus card and cable for it. It uses a 68 pin connector just like all your vintage SCSI gear. I just grabbed a random SCSI cable and it worked.

Here you will see a pretty damn rare logo. Is that a moon ? When I had one before it was off a SS1+. It only came up after openwin booted. I've never seen this before.



Nothing much 3d in openwindows but, this what a $50,000 virtual fishtank looked like in 1992.

ss2. It just knew what to do.

I thought the same thing haha There is some color in it though. Maybe its supposed to be the earth ? I need CSI to come over and enhance this picture.

Who is paying the power bill ?

We've all been there. Well some of us have anyway. Can't worry about what you have had before just what you find tomorrow and what you do with it then.

The MPE/iX thing is nothing to worry about. Even if you have a box to run it you'll have an impossible time getting the OS and if you do it probably wont run on your machine. I have never met such paranoid people as those in possession of mpe/ix tapes.

I don't know what sort of smack HP laid down but, they still live in fear. I am pretty sure they had an actual hit squad that would take you out if you so much as stuck a mpe/ix tape in an unauthorized tape drive.

Man someone bought 2. $289 is nuts. They are opening them up and installing parts too. I am not sure that really qualifies for any extra value. At that point what is the actual difference between new and used ? The box it came in ?

That is about the worst spec'd SS20 you can have too.

It has gone crazy inside the US too. Everyone raised shipping rates dramatically here when gas prices spiked last year claiming it was to cover the cost of fuel. Now that gas dropped to some of the lowest prices in years they, of course, haven't reduced shipping a single cent. Nobody was too surprised.

I agree although only for flat rate and media mail. Priority mail for larger stuff gets nuts fast. First class package is great but, only goes to 13oz. The new padded flat rate envelope is amazing but, hard to get. They aren't available from post offices only ordered online. Free bubble mailer that fits a more than it looks like it should.

The SCSI header is actually under the video board and can't be seen in the picture. It is right behind the external SCSI connector. The un-soldered connector you see is another P4 that Sun never used afaik.

I am going to guess the blown supply is from the case with the hard drive mod. There is a reason Sun gave up on the idea even though they designed space for it on the board. They usually ended that way if the motherboard didn't die from heat first. It was a fairly unwise mod to do but, some people did anyway. Wasn't enough cooling or power for sticking a HD in there especially for the early 3.5" HD.