The museum

160k JPEG backplane of BA123 VAX

People usually laugh when I tell them I have a Vaxcluster system at home. It started with a Vaxstation 2000, which I upgraded from 4 plane to 8 plane graphics, a Microvax II in a BA123 worldbox, which I upgraded to a 3600. (Original picture above).

Things have changed since then. My boss rescued a VAX 4200 from a skip which had a blown PICO fuse and no ethernet address chip. The Q4 / World Box / BA123 has now been retired for this beasty, but it's only in a BA213, so I've only 6 QBUS slots to play with, and with my CXY08, only 1 spare! The RD54's are replaced with RF31's.

The narrow box has been retired for a BA215, its currently a 4705A 512MB and a VAXstation 3100-76/SPX 32MB and a DEC 2000 axp (Jensen 150) 128MB coupled to the 4705 with DSSI. Networking cables have also made their way into the bedroom, and systems live on their own private IP network, proxied and served by the main system, the proxy server for the rest of the network, including a pc and an X terminal as well. The house has had significant work carried out, and UTP cabling was run for networking, and a hub links network points and asynchronous RS232 to a number of points in the house. Networking is now 10/100 switched.

Since moving, I acquired a AlphaServer 1000 4/233 512MB, which replaced the DEC 2000, DSSI cabled storage on HSD10 raid / stripeset and SWXCR host, and volume shadowed, and ISDN TA. For hardware requirements, I can really recommend Island Computers, ask for Dave and say Nic sent you.

I connect to the 'net via Demon using ISDN (64kbs) for brief periods, sometimes longer in the evenings and weekends. The link is more of a novelty than being any major use from this page, but if it works you connect to a machine plugged in my home!! The link is fed via a DS700 terminal server over V120 protocol host initiated PPP.

What do I do on it?

Err not a lot really, I store the masters to the Bolton Web Pages, where I edit and update, they are automatically uploaded. Lots of email, and lots of playing with the VMS operating system. I have published a number of freeware packages for the operating system.

Also in the museum is a BBC model B with floppy drive (6502 based), a Psion CM, a Psion LZ64, a PDP11/23+, a couple more Microvax II's, and various other ancillary equipment. I also have an IBM compatible PC-AT with 3.5 and 5.25. Joining the list is a 486 running linux (also on the home network). If you can beat it, tell me on email nic

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