Re: VAX 780 on eBay
Another DECDataSystem 570 version front panel just sold for $1850 https://www.ebay.com/itm/265512455331 Hm. Time to sell this old 8/I front panel. It's one of those things I have had for 30+ years and really don't need...
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 4:52 PM Glen Slick wrote: > On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 10:05 AM Josh Dersch via cctalk > wrote: > > > > No blinkenlights. It's not exciting looking. This tracks for PDP-11s > (and > > 8's!) as well. No one pays big money for 11/04, 11/34, 11/44 or LSI-11 > > systems (though prices are creeping up like everything else) but 11/05, > > 11/40, 11/70, etc. sell for huge amounts every time. There's an 11/70 > > front panel at over $500 on eBay right now with two days left, it'll > > probably sell for $2500. > > > > Not even close. Only sold for $1800 :) > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/185225084454 Another DECDataSystem 570 version front panel just sold for $1850 https://www.ebay.com/itm/265512455331 Blinkenlights always makes a huge difference.
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 10:05 AM Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: > > No blinkenlights. It's not exciting looking. This tracks for PDP-11s (and > 8's!) as well. No one pays big money for 11/04, 11/34, 11/44 or LSI-11 > systems (though prices are creeping up like everything else) but 11/05, > 11/40, 11/70, etc. sell for huge amounts every time. There's an 11/70 > front panel at over $500 on eBay right now with two days left, it'll > probably sell for $2500. > Not even close. Only sold for $1800 :) https://www.ebay.com/itm/185225084454
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 2:56 AM Noel Chiappa via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > This: > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/275084268137 > > ... > > Anyway I fully expect it to go ... for a _lot_ more than the opening > price. > > Much to my surprise, it didn't sell at all (although a number of other > lots, > likely from this machine, did.) > > I'm rather puzzled that an -11/70 will sell for north of $10K, while a /780 > can't fetch $5K. I can only guess that PDP-11'S are seen as more important > in > the collector world (even though the BSD work, which had such a huge > impact on > UNIX, which has now - in the form of Linux - taken over the world, was > centered on the VAX). > As others have mentioned, power is one concern, but my guess is this: No blinkenlights. It's not exciting looking. This tracks for PDP-11s (and 8's!) as well. No one pays big money for 11/04, 11/34, 11/44 or LSI-11 systems (though prices are creeping up like everything else) but 11/05, 11/40, 11/70, etc. sell for huge amounts every time. There's an 11/70 front panel at over $500 on eBay right now with two days left, it'll probably sell for $2500. - Josh > > Noel > >
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/9/22 8:17 AM, P Gebhardt via cctalk wrote: I'm rather puzzled that an -11/70 will sell for north of $10K, while a /780 can't fetch $5K. I can only guess that PDP-11'S are seen as more important in the collector world (even though the BSD work, which had such a huge impact on UNIX, which has now - in the form of Linux - taken over the world, was centered on the VAX). Noel, maybethis is also related to the bare size of an 11/780 (any peripherals excluded) Right, you can run an 11/70 from a regular wall socket, but the /780 needs 3-phase, and consumes a LOT more power. I think you could squeeze a usable 11/70 into a single rack with modern peripherals, but No WAY for a /780. But, yes, I'm also surprised it didn't sell. Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
>I'm rather puzzled that an -11/70 will sell for north of $10K, while a /780 >can't fetch $5K. I can only guess that PDP-11'S are seen as more important in >the collector world (even though the BSD work, which had such a huge impact on >UNIX, which has now - in the form of Linux - taken over the world, was >centered on the VAX). Noel, maybethis is also related to the bare size of an 11/780 (any peripherals excluded) compared to a 11/70 which can be handled a bit easier when it comes to moving and storing it somewhere. And then we had these recent discussions about powering an 11/780 for those who would actually like to do something with it rather than just storing it. I think that an 11/70 is more convenient in practical terms for a lot of enthousiasts out there. Cheers, Piere
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> This: > https://www.ebay.com/itm/275084268137 > ... > Anyway I fully expect it to go ... for a _lot_ more than the opening price. Much to my surprise, it didn't sell at all (although a number of other lots, likely from this machine, did.) I'm rather puzzled that an -11/70 will sell for north of $10K, while a /780 can't fetch $5K. I can only guess that PDP-11'S are seen as more important in the collector world (even though the BSD work, which had such a huge impact on UNIX, which has now - in the form of Linux - taken over the world, was centered on the VAX). Noel
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
tis 2022-01-04 klockan 08:40 -0700 skrev Grant Taylor via cctalk: > On 1/4/22 12:14 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > Seymour Cray, along with Bill Norris and Jim Thornton and others > > left Remington Rand/UNIVAC after Rand bought the near-bankrupt ERA. > > Apparently, the work environment at Rand was felt to be stifling. > > Norris had all of the Navy connections and was a great marketer, > > so bringing some of Rand's engineering talent along was a natural. > > Interesting. > > I guess I thought that since Seymour left CDC to form Cray Research, > that meant that he was more of an employee at CDC and had less > influence > on how it operated as a company. I would have assumed that someone > that > was a founder would have had more influence and tried to improve > things > before splitting off and forming yet another new company. > CISCO ? Bosack and Lerner ? And after getting kicked out by the venture capitalists sold of all their remaining shares in cisco.
Re: 3phase power for VAXen [was Re: VAX 780 on eBay]
On Tue, Jan 4, 2022 at 5:17 PM Rich Alderson via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > We did not have a 3phase outlet on the second floor of the building where > the > collection was housed, and there was no room for the first VAX in the small > computer room on the third floor, so Ian and Keith came up with an > alternative: > They tested all the outlets on the second floor and determined that there > were > three within reach of the room in which Ian was going to work on the 785 > which > were fed from 3 different phases off the big honking breaker panel (200A > service, IIRC). Keith put together a box with the appropriate NEMA socket > and > three heavy duty cords feeding into it, which in turn were plugged into > three > outlets on the walls around what eventually became the vintage exhibition > hall > at Living Computers: Museum + Labs (the eventual name of the place after > the > modern exhibit space on the first floor was built). > > So it's possible to power a 780 or 785 without a power supply rebuild if > you > simply have the right (industrial) breaker panel in your building... > > Happy New Year, everybody! > > Rich > After looking at the 869-D diagrams and the 11/780 power diagram, this makes sense. The power diagrams show 3 120VAC circuits. There is no phase relationship required between the phases, EXCEPT in the 869-D itself. The 4 pole 30A circuit breaker will trip if any (L1, L2, L3, N) is overloaded. If L1, L2, L3 are out of phase then the neutral doesn't carry much current, but if they are all the same phase then the total limit will be 30A. There are 4 connections L1, L2, L3 and N. In the US you would connect the highest current draw leg to one side of the 120VAC and connect the other two legs to the other 120VAC phase and then HOPE that it works. The 869-D outlet are: unswitched L1 switched L1 switched L2 switched L3 For me, if I can buy a Shelby Cobra, I buy it first and figure out where to park it later. Chuck D.
Re: 3phase power for VAXen [was Re: VAX 780 on eBay]
On 1/4/2022 5:17 PM, Rich Alderson via cctalk wrote: I've been reading this thread for the last few days, without the time to reply. All the statutes of limitations have run out, so I can tell the story; it will be clear shortly why I'm piggybacking on Guy's post. Someday we will all gather around the bonfire, ringed by our black helicopters and will share the tale of Doug's KA10 that ran in his apartment unit. We did not have a 3phase outlet on the second floor of the building where the collection was housed, and there was no room for the first VAX in the small computer room on the third floor, so Ian and Keith came up with an alternative: They tested all the outlets on the second floor and determined that there were three within reach of the room in which Ian was going to work on the 785 which were fed from 3 different phases off the big honking breaker panel (200A service, IIRC). Keith put together a box with the appropriate NEMA socket and three heavy duty cords feeding into it, which in turn were plugged into three outlets on the walls around what eventually became the vintage exhibition hall at Living Computers: Museum + Labs (the eventual name of the place after the modern exhibit space on the first floor was built). It was far worse than that CZ
Re: 3phase power for VAXen [was Re: VAX 780 on eBay]
> Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2022 14:44:00 -0800 > From: Van Snyder via cctalk > On Tue, 2022-01-04 at 17:17 -0500, Rich Alderson via cctalk wrote: >> Paul Allen wanted me to acquire a VAX-11/780 for his >> collection > John Zabolitzky has an operating VAX -- I don't know the vintage -- > eleven cabinets, in his collection in Neubiberg, a southeastern suburb > of Munich. > He also has a Cyber 180, Cyber 960, Cray Y-ML EL, Cray T3E, NEC SX-6, > IBM 705, > Photos > at > https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPGeVphL95gtsGIO96iU4APdtSRnHhcm1y4-YaPspa6_jDuAZw6cfD3FR3OFr8czw?key=MjJZNUVjMWtLRkVKbmF2TnFDa3ZneDM0WWFqZ0hB Yes, I know about John's collection. Thanks. I suppose I should have pointed out that the story posted took place about 15 years ago, when we were all younger and healthier and living... Rich
Re: 3phase power for VAXen [was Re: VAX 780 on eBay]
As the owner of a VAX-11/780 I can confirm what Guy says about the 866 power controller. This is the only component that needs 3-phase power. There is a small 3-phase transformer inside that provides 24V DC to the control circuitry. The power controller not only interfaces to the DEC power control bus to switch on other cabinets (with a delayed output) but also connects to airflow sensors above each blower. If the airflow fails then it cuts power to the system. The blowers themselves are all single phase. I converted my power controller to run on single phase by replacing the transformer (18VAC, 20VA). It's also important to note that the neutral wire from the line filter to the output rail is undersized for running the system on single phase. If the system were running on 3-phase then the neutral current would be minimal but running from single phase means ALL the current is going through neutral wire. I replaced this wire with one of a suitable rating. I am in the UK so the figures I give are for running a system which would normally be on 415V 3-phase from a 240V single phase supply. For 110V you can probably just double the current figures. I have the FP780 option as well as 2x DW780 and RH780 controllers. To power everything in the main cabinet takes about 16.5A. I run this all off a 20A circuit breaker (B-Curve RCBO). I have to turn on the H7100 power supplies one at a time. If I try to turn them all on at once the inrush will trip the breaker. There are two different versions on the H7100 in this system. The older version uses a 3 ohm resistor, which is shorted by a relay after power up, to limit the inrush. These have quite a high inrush current. The later version uses a thermistor in place of the resistor which greatly improves the situation. Once you have the main cabinet powered then to get a usable system you then need about another 4A to run the two BA11K Unibus boxes and whatever power is required for a disk drive. In my case that's usually an RA70 or RA72 so fairly minimal. I don't have any Massbus disks but I do have a TU77 connected to the system. The heating effect is noticeable after the system has been running for a while so you may also have to consider air conditioning power requirements. Matt
Re: 3phase power for VAXen [was Re: VAX 780 on eBay]
On Tue, 2022-01-04 at 17:17 -0500, Rich Alderson via cctalk wrote: > Paul Allen wanted me to acquire a VAX-11/780 for his > collection John Zabolitzky has an operating VAX -- I don't know the vintage -- eleven cabinets, in his collection in Neubiberg, a southeastern suburb of Munich. He also has a Cyber 180, Cyber 960, Cray Y-ML EL, Cray T3E, NEC SX-6, IBM 705, Photos at https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPGeVphL95gtsGIO96iU4APdtSRnHhcm1y4-YaPspa6_jDuAZw6cfD3FR3OFr8czw?key=MjJZNUVjMWtLRkVKbmF2TnFDa3ZneDM0WWFqZ0hB
3phase power for VAXen [was Re: VAX 780 on eBay]
> Date: Sat, 1 Jan 2022 13:19:51 -0800 > From: Guy Sotomayor via cctalk > On 1/1/22 10:40 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >>> On Jan 1, 2022, at 1:12 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk >>> wrote: >>> This: >>> https://www.ebay.com/itm/275084268137 >>> The starting price is expensive, but probably not utterly unreasonable, >>> given that: >>> - the 780 was the first VAX, and thus historically important >>> - 780's are incredibly rare; this is the first one I recall seeing for sale >>> in the classic computer era (versus several -11/70's, /40s, etc) >>> - this one appears to be reasonably complete; no idea if all the key CPU >>> boards are included, but it's things like the backplane, etc (all of which >>> seem to be there) which would be completely impossible to find now - if >>> any >>> boards _are_ missing, there's at least the _hope_ that they can be located >>> (780 boards seem to come by every so often on eBait), since people seem to >>> keep boards, not realizing that without the other bits they are useless >> Interesting, but the argument for why it's not tested is implausible which >> makes me very suspicious. I suppose there might be a few American homes >> that have only 110 volt power, but I'm hard pressed to think of any I have >> ever seen, and that includes really old houses. > Without replacing the power controller in the 11/780, you need 208v 3-phase > to run it. It's not impossible...nothing in the CPU actually *needs* 3-phase > as the individual power supplies are 120v but the overall maximum load is > greater than a 30A 120v circuit. > TTFN - Guy I've been reading this thread for the last few days, without the time to reply. All the statutes of limitations have run out, so I can tell the story; it will be clear shortly why I'm piggybacking on Guy's post. Back in the mists of time, Paul Allen wanted me to acquire a VAX-11/780 for his collection. Shortly after that request landed in my inbox, the DECUS DFWLUG announced that they would not be opening their VAX museum due to the untimely passing of the gentleman who was driving the effort, and that they would be disposing of the collection. I contacted the person who was handling the deaccession, but he would not discuss it with me because someone else had already arranged to take the whole collection. That person was Guy Sotomayor. Guy sold Paul two 11/785 systems (one an upgrade, with the 780-5 replacement label!) in chassis, with a third full set of boards as spares. I flew down to the Bay Area and had lunch with Guy, saw his DEC-10 and all that, and arranged for the shipping. Shortly after that, Paul floated the idea of turning the collection into an actual museum. (At the time, the project consisted of me and an electrical engineer named Keith Perez, who devoted his spare time to helping me keep Paul's big iron running. Keith was building the digital control system for Paul's submarine at the time.) The project, an online "museum" called PDPplanet, changed its name to Living Computer Museum; we hired a third engineer to help, Ian King, who was eminently qualified to get the VAXen up and running based on his own private collection of VAXen and -11s in his basement. We did not have a 3phase outlet on the second floor of the building where the collection was housed, and there was no room for the first VAX in the small computer room on the third floor, so Ian and Keith came up with an alternative: They tested all the outlets on the second floor and determined that there were three within reach of the room in which Ian was going to work on the 785 which were fed from 3 different phases off the big honking breaker panel (200A service, IIRC). Keith put together a box with the appropriate NEMA socket and three heavy duty cords feeding into it, which in turn were plugged into three outlets on the walls around what eventually became the vintage exhibition hall at Living Computers: Museum + Labs (the eventual name of the place after the modern exhibit space on the first floor was built). So it's possible to power a 780 or 785 without a power supply rebuild if you simply have the right (industrial) breaker panel in your building... Happy New Year, everybody! Rich
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> > > Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2022 11:39:01 -0500 > From: Chris Zach > > The thing that always made me wonder is where are all the 8600's. The > 8600 was apparently the best selling large Vax, outselling the 780 and > 750, so what happened to all of them? They weren't any bigger than a 780... > > C > There is an 8650 at the RICM. https://www.ricomputermuseum.org/collections-gallery/equipment/dec-vax-8650 -- Michael Thompson
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/4/22 7:40 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > I guess I thought that since Seymour left CDC to form Cray Research, > that meant that he was more of an employee at CDC and had less influence > on how it operated as a company. I would have assumed that someone that > was a founder would have had more influence and tried to improve things > before splitting off and forming yet another new company. My recollection was over the CDC 8600 project--there is a preliminary document over at bitsavers: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/cdc/8600/Preliminary8600RefMan_Aug72.pdf Sort of a 4-processor 64-bit 7600, but with some important differences, such as discarding the notion of A and B registers and relying on 16 64-bit registers for everything. P-relative branches and calls and out-of-user-space "library" routine use. Apparently, the sharp pencil people were unwilling to fund the thing fully and Seymour left (with the blessings of CDC which owned stock in Cray Research) to do his own thing, along with selection of a few key CDC personnel to help staffing. Afterwards, Cray was forbidden to recruit from CDC ranks for a number of years. At the time, the super-duper-computer funding was being funneled into Jim Thornton's STAR-100 project. You could see a definite difference of philosophy--the STAR was a virtual-memory vector machine (eventually became the ETA-10) with scalar subset facilities, whereas the 8600 was a real-memory fast scalar architecture with no vector facilities. In the end, the Cray-1 wound up with some vector instructions and registers. Funding a system like the Cray I or STAR (or any other supercomputer of the day) required a huge cash commitment and CDC was unwilling to fund *two* such projects. --Chuck
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Jan 4, 2022, at 4:05 AM, P Gebhardt via cctalk wrote: > > >> There's a photo on twitter: >> >> https://twitter.com/DonaldM38768041/status/1215804561333473280/photo/2 >> >> showing a guy standing before an open one at Fermilab. > > > In of the pictures are shown some very handy tape and disk pack holders on > wheels. I never saw such fancy holders. Would be great to come across one of > those - or better so some myself. > > Cheers, > Pierre The tape cart is just a standard cart for taking tapes between the tape library room and where the tape drives are located. I’ve seen an updated version made for DLT/SDLT/LTO tapes. The disk pack holder on the other hand is something I’ve never seen, I have to wonder if it was custom, and how well it handled an uneven load. Zane
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/4/22 9:40 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: On 1/4/22 12:14 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: Seymour Cray, along with Bill Norris and Jim Thornton and others left Remington Rand/UNIVAC after Rand bought the near-bankrupt ERA. Apparently, the work environment at Rand was felt to be stifling. Norris had all of the Navy connections and was a great marketer, so bringing some of Rand's engineering talent along was a natural. Interesting. I guess I thought that since Seymour left CDC to form Cray Research, that meant that he was more of an employee at CDC and had less influence on how it operated as a company. I would have assumed that someone that was a founder would have had more influence and tried to improve things before splitting off and forming yet another new company. There are PLENTY of examples of the sole founder being either forced out by the board or shunted aside. See James Ryder or Alan Shugart, who both were forced out, sued to prevent them from using their own names, but then went into competition with their old companies and ran them out of business. Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 4, 2022, at 10:40 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk > wrote: > > On 1/4/22 12:14 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: >> Seymour Cray, along with Bill Norris and Jim Thornton and others left >> Remington Rand/UNIVAC after Rand bought the near-bankrupt ERA. Apparently, >> the work environment at Rand was felt to be stifling. Norris had all of the >> Navy connections and was a great marketer, so bringing some of Rand's >> engineering talent along was a natural. > > Interesting. > > I guess I thought that since Seymour left CDC to form Cray Research, that > meant that he was more of an employee at CDC and had less influence on how it > operated as a company. I would have assumed that someone that was a founder > would have had more influence and tried to improve things before splitting > off and forming yet another new company. Being a founder doesn't necessarily help much if the company gets big and chairwarmers take control. It's one thing if you're a chairwarmer yourself and rise to CEO, but if you're a top engineer you may be in a non-control position -- especially back then when managers were managers and engineers just did what they were told. For another example, consider Steve Jobs, who didn't even leave Apple voluntarily. paul
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/4/22 12:14 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: Seymour Cray, along with Bill Norris and Jim Thornton and others left Remington Rand/UNIVAC after Rand bought the near-bankrupt ERA. Apparently, the work environment at Rand was felt to be stifling. Norris had all of the Navy connections and was a great marketer, so bringing some of Rand's engineering talent along was a natural. Interesting. I guess I thought that since Seymour left CDC to form Cray Research, that meant that he was more of an employee at CDC and had less influence on how it operated as a company. I would have assumed that someone that was a founder would have had more influence and tried to improve things before splitting off and forming yet another new company. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
>There's a photo on twitter: > >https://twitter.com/DonaldM38768041/status/1215804561333473280/photo/2 > >showing a guy standing before an open one at Fermilab. In of the pictures are shown some very handy tape and disk pack holders on wheels. I never saw such fancy holders. Would be great to come across one of those - or better so some myself. Cheers, Pierre - http://www.digitalheritage.de
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/3/22 6:49 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > On 1/3/22 4:01 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: >> https://twitter.com/DonaldM38768041/status/1215804561333473280/photo/2 > > Interesting series of tweets. > > I'm surprised by the tweet about Seymour Cray founding Control Data > Corporation. I know that Cray /worked/ for CDC, and left to found Cray > Research, but I was not aware that Seymour had anything to do with > founding CDC. Seymour Cray, along with Bill Norris and Jim Thornton and others left Remington Rand/UNIVAC after Rand bought the near-bankrupt ERA. Apparently, the work environment at Rand was felt to be stifling. Norris had all of the Navy connections and was a great marketer, so bringing some of Rand's engineering talent along was a natural. --Chuck
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/3/22 4:01 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: https://twitter.com/DonaldM38768041/status/1215804561333473280/photo/2 Interesting series of tweets. I'm surprised by the tweet about Seymour Cray founding Control Data Corporation. I know that Cray /worked/ for CDC, and left to found Cray Research, but I was not aware that Seymour had anything to do with founding CDC. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/3/22 1:23 PM, Paul Koning wrote: > The 6603 is highly unusual because it has 12 bit parallel data flow, rather > than bit-serial as everyone else did (until Cray went back to parallel with > the Cray 1, if I remember right). That made the 6603 very much faster, as > far as data throughput goes, than any other drive for quite a number of > years. It also has variable sector counts depending on cylinder number, > which came back a long time later. And it has a rotating head actuator > rather than linear motion, just as recent hard drives do. The 808/6638 is parallel also (I even have one of the heads in my desk drawer memorabilia collection (6 channel). A real Rube Goldberg setup--4 spindles, 2 motors, 2 positioners, with each positioner having only 32 possible positions. 12 heads per "track" on 32 surfaces gives you 384 track access without moving. There's a photo on twitter: https://twitter.com/DonaldM38768041/status/1215804561333473280/photo/2 showing a guy standing before an open one at Fermilab. --Chuck
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 3, 2022, at 3:36 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk > wrote: > > On 1/3/22 10:58 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >> The discussion about 3-phase made me check some documentation. > >> I also looked at some CDC 6000 series docs. Those used 400 Hz 3 phase for >> supplying the CPU and peripheral logic. The CPU cabinets also take 3 phase >> mains power for the compressors (for the Freon cooling system). Curiously, >> the 1964-era 6603 disk drive uses only 400 Hz power. I wonder if that feeds >> the spindle motor, or if that was a DC motor? And the 626 tape drive wants >> 3-phase mains power. > > Are you certain about that? The '66 document for the Bryant series I > drives/6603 > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/bryant60127000B_Bryant4000_ServiceHbk_Oct66.pdf > > on page 1-3 mentions 280/440 3-phase just for the spindle motor (5 or 10 > hp, depending on number of disks). The hydraulic pump had its own > 3-phase motor. I think the 6603 electronics were 400Hz. Serious > current draw on those motor lines too--the Series II shows power > consumption draw at 280VAC--somewhere around 50A. I forgot that drive was Bryant. The 400 Hz only information comes from the 6000 Site Prep manual, so I guess they got it wrong. > I remember the leak jugs--and the hydraulic fluid that occasionally made > it onto the floor. An operator at SVLOPS made a dash to take care of a > 501 printer and slipped and fell in a puddle of the stuff. It was funny > at the time... > > The old 808/6638 drives, which displaced the 6603, similarly used 280V > 3-phase for the 5 hp spindle motor and hydraulic pump and 440Hz for the > electronics. The only hydraulic actuator drive I ever saw in person was an IBM 1311. Found out when it sprang a leak and sprayed hydraulic oil all over the boot pack. FE guy cleaned everything (heads, pack, etc.), fixed the seal and bled the system, and it all worked afterwards. No damage to the pack. The 6603 is highly unusual because it has 12 bit parallel data flow, rather than bit-serial as everyone else did (until Cray went back to parallel with the Cray 1, if I remember right). That made the 6603 very much faster, as far as data throughput goes, than any other drive for quite a number of years. It also has variable sector counts depending on cylinder number, which came back a long time later. And it has a rotating head actuator rather than linear motion, just as recent hard drives do. paul
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/3/22 10:58 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > The discussion about 3-phase made me check some documentation. > I also looked at some CDC 6000 series docs. Those used 400 Hz 3 phase for > supplying the CPU and peripheral logic. The CPU cabinets also take 3 phase > mains power for the compressors (for the Freon cooling system). Curiously, > the 1964-era 6603 disk drive uses only 400 Hz power. I wonder if that feeds > the spindle motor, or if that was a DC motor? And the 626 tape drive wants > 3-phase mains power. Are you certain about that? The '66 document for the Bryant series I drives/6603 http://bitsavers.org/pdf/bryant60127000B_Bryant4000_ServiceHbk_Oct66.pdf on page 1-3 mentions 280/440 3-phase just for the spindle motor (5 or 10 hp, depending on number of disks). The hydraulic pump had its own 3-phase motor. I think the 6603 electronics were 400Hz. Serious current draw on those motor lines too--the Series II shows power consumption draw at 280VAC--somewhere around 50A. I remember the leak jugs--and the hydraulic fluid that occasionally made it onto the floor. An operator at SVLOPS made a dash to take care of a 501 printer and slipped and fell in a puddle of the stuff. It was funny at the time... The old 808/6638 drives, which displaced the 6603, similarly used 280V 3-phase for the 5 hp spindle motor and hydraulic pump and 440Hz for the electronics. The 821 was sort of a double-capacity version of the 808. Other than for a few units, it never made it to general distribution, being rendered obsolete by the 844 disk pack drives. I recall that CDC qualified for a lucrative contract by dint of Mike Miller noticing that one of the 821s had gone offline and doing a 100 yard sprint to punch the button. CDC qualified by a matter of seconds. --Chuck
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 11:47 AM emanuel stiebler via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 2022-01-03 13:19, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > > > Compiling all the code for our product took the 11/750 6 hours to > > compile and link plus an additional 2 hours for an 11/730 to link > > under a different version of VMS. 8 hours total to rebuild totally > > from source. Some things about the good old days weren't so good. > > Disagree here ;-) > Before you hit compile, you switched your brain on, and thought for a > while what you did. > > When I watch this kids in the office now pressing compile after each > character they typed, > Compilers today tend to still suffer from cascading error problems... I usually fix as many as I can before that starts to set in and then rebuild. But I must say that computers are sometimes much better at finding bugs and problems than I am, even when I'm thinking. Better to let automation fix the easy stuff so I can reserve the thinking time for really hard bugs... Warner
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
Only F*tran, which we used for predicting race horse results on the midnight shift. The enterprise app was written in ART418 assembler. I'm having lots of fun with the ESDI drives, got one running RT11 on the 11/73, and one running NetBSD on the MicroVAX, but then tried the two I got from Jeremy and it recognised them and wouldn't write to them. Then the controller got a total internal failure and so now I only have one machine working! cheers, Nigel Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept! Skype: tilbury2591nw.john...@ieee.org On 2022-01-03 14:41, Toby Thain wrote: On 2022-01-03 2:37 p.m., Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk wrote: Hit Compile? In my first job, it was triggered by the EOJ card! You had a COMPILER? As far as I can see, these days the state of the art is to crash at runtime for as many different stupid reasons as possible. --T (get off my lawn!) Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept! Skype: tilbury2591nw.john...@ieee.org On 2022-01-03 13:47, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: On 2022-01-03 13:19, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: Compiling all the code for our product took the 11/750 6 hours to compile and link plus an additional 2 hours for an 11/730 to link under a different version of VMS. 8 hours total to rebuild totally from source. Some things about the good old days weren't so good. Disagree here ;-) Before you hit compile, you switched your brain on, and thought for a while what you did. When I watch this kids in the office now pressing compile after each character they typed,
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 2022-01-03 2:37 p.m., Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk wrote: Hit Compile? In my first job, it was triggered by the EOJ card! You had a COMPILER? As far as I can see, these days the state of the art is to crash at runtime for as many different stupid reasons as possible. --T (get off my lawn!) Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept! Skype: tilbury2591nw.john...@ieee.org On 2022-01-03 13:47, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: On 2022-01-03 13:19, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: Compiling all the code for our product took the 11/750 6 hours to compile and link plus an additional 2 hours for an 11/730 to link under a different version of VMS. 8 hours total to rebuild totally from source. Some things about the good old days weren't so good. Disagree here ;-) Before you hit compile, you switched your brain on, and thought for a while what you did. When I watch this kids in the office now pressing compile after each character they typed,
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
Hit Compile? In my first job, it was triggered by the EOJ card! Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept! Skype: tilbury2591nw.john...@ieee.org On 2022-01-03 13:47, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: On 2022-01-03 13:19, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: Compiling all the code for our product took the 11/750 6 hours to compile and link plus an additional 2 hours for an 11/730 to link under a different version of VMS. 8 hours total to rebuild totally from source. Some things about the good old days weren't so good. Disagree here ;-) Before you hit compile, you switched your brain on, and thought for a while what you did. When I watch this kids in the office now pressing compile after each character they typed,
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
The discussion about 3-phase made me check some documentation. The drive I remembered that uses 3-phase power is the RP04. I remember a warning to the installer to verify the phase order; if that's wrong the drive will try to spin up in the wrong direction, which might partially unscrew the pack from the spindle -- that would be bad if the heads tried to load. The RP07 is also 3-phase. Other drives I looked at are 1 phase. I also looked at some CDC 6000 series docs. Those used 400 Hz 3 phase for supplying the CPU and peripheral logic. The CPU cabinets also take 3 phase mains power for the compressors (for the Freon cooling system). Curiously, the 1964-era 6603 disk drive uses only 400 Hz power. I wonder if that feeds the spindle motor, or if that was a DC motor? And the 626 tape drive wants 3-phase mains power. paul
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 2022-01-03 13:19, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: Compiling all the code for our product took the 11/750 6 hours to compile and link plus an additional 2 hours for an 11/730 to link under a different version of VMS. 8 hours total to rebuild totally from source. Some things about the good old days weren't so good. Disagree here ;-) Before you hit compile, you switched your brain on, and thought for a while what you did. When I watch this kids in the office now pressing compile after each character they typed,
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 3, 2022, at 10:19 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk > wrote: > > On Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 12:29 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk > wrote: >> On 1/3/22 11:50 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: >>> I'll agree with that. We used to run 40-50 users on our 8MB 11/750 >>> (with both CMI and Unibus disk) but it did do some swapping over 8-10 >>> users. >> >> You obviously didn't use the Ada compiler. :-) >> >> Or Eunice, for that matter. > > Hell no! > > 90% of our work was in C, the rest in m68k assembler (our own), VAX > MACRO, or FORTRAN. We started off with Whitesmith's C then by the > late 80s also used DEC's VAX C. > > Compiling all the code for our product took the 11/750 6 hours to > compile and link plus an additional 2 hours for an 11/730 to link > under a different version of VMS. 8 hours total to rebuild totally > from source. Some things about the good old days weren't so good. > > -ethan At my current $WORK it takes a 40 core linux box with 200GB of RAM 22 hours to rebuild our source tree from scratch. So for some of us it hasn’t gotten any better over the years. David
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 12:29 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 1/3/22 11:50 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > > I'll agree with that. We used to run 40-50 users on our 8MB 11/750 > > (with both CMI and Unibus disk) but it did do some swapping over 8-10 > > users. > > You obviously didn't use the Ada compiler. :-) > > Or Eunice, for that matter. Hell no! 90% of our work was in C, the rest in m68k assembler (our own), VAX MACRO, or FORTRAN. We started off with Whitesmith's C then by the late 80s also used DEC's VAX C. Compiling all the code for our product took the 11/750 6 hours to compile and link plus an additional 2 hours for an 11/730 to link under a different version of VMS. 8 hours total to rebuild totally from source. Some things about the good old days weren't so good. -ethan
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Jan 3, 2022, at 8:39 AM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > > The thing that always made me wonder is where are all the 8600's. The 8600 > was apparently the best selling large Vax, outselling the 780 and 750, so > what happened to all of them? They weren't any bigger than a 780... The only VAX 8xxx I’ve heard of in this area was scrapped. I managed to rescue the system console and the “digital” badge off of the VAX, but the scrapper had some sort of deal with the Hospital that had it to scrap the VAX itself, IIRC. Personally, these days, I think the largest I’d seriously consider is a VAX 4000 series, though I’d try to figure out how to handle a VAX 7000 if the chance arose. One of these days, I want to get SIMH/VAX running on a 12th Gen Core i7 (or better). With the ancient i7 I have here, I’ve been able to get about 34 VUPS, which is faster than my VAXstation 4000/90. Zane
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/3/22 11:50 AM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: On Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 12:18 AM Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: I had accounts on a MicroVAX 2 and a VAX 11/750. The microvax was faster for most compute jobs, but the 750 with 1/4 the memory handled more users mostly in text editors with the occasional compile or nroff/troff jobs. IIRC, the 750 had faster disks... I'll agree with that. We used to run 40-50 users on our 8MB 11/750 (with both CMI and Unibus disk) but it did do some swapping over 8-10 users. You obviously didn't use the Ada compiler. :-) Or Eunice, for that matter. bill
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/3/22 9:16 AM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: On 2022-01-03 08:54, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: Not too surprising; the /780 and /785 are basically the same machine. (In fact, one could convert a /780 to a /785 by pulling out the /780 CPU cards and replacing them with a set of /785 cards; basically the same cards, with the 74S chips replaced with 74AS.) There should be more /785s out there than plain /780... IIRC, most /780 were upgraded, as the "old" /780 had some EMC issues in the field? Am I dreaming this up? We had two /780's I was partially responsible for. we never had EMC trouble with them, they were really ROCK solid machines. These were not the first 780 machines made, they were delivered in about 1980 and 1982-3. Neither were ever upgraded to /785. Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/2/22 7:11 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: but the 780 was really slow. I have a Microvax II here that would equal it CPU speed-wise, and the running of the main memory on the SBI was cool for the 782 option but was pretty slow. Can I ask for a rough translation in to comparative VAX Units of Performance (VUPs)? I /think/ that the VAX 11/780 was 1 VUP. By definition, the /780 was 1.0 VUP. The KA630 (MicroVAX II) was supposed to be 0.8 VUP. It beat the /780 on floating point, supposedly. Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Mon, Jan 3, 2022 at 12:18 AM Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > I had accounts on a MicroVAX 2 and a VAX 11/750. The microvax was faster > for most compute jobs, but the 750 with 1/4 the memory handled more users > mostly in text editors with the occasional compile or nroff/troff jobs. > IIRC, the 750 had faster disks... I'll agree with that. We used to run 40-50 users on our 8MB 11/750 (with both CMI and Unibus disk) but it did do some swapping over 8-10 users. The MicroVAX II was a pretty snappy single-user machine, but was a big sluggish over 4 users. Our big compute jobs were running compilers. Most of our user load was VMS MAIL, EDT, MASS-11... -ethan
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Jan 2, 2022, at 9:18 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > I had accounts on a MicroVAX 2 and a VAX 11/750. The microvax was faster for > most compute jobs, but the 750 with 1/4 the memory handled more users mostly > in text editors with the occasional compile or nroff/troff jobs. IIRC, the > 750 had faster disks... > > Warner I picked up a copy of “VAX I/O Subsystems: Optimizing Performance”, it gives I/O speeds for SDI and DSSI disks, I don’t doubt that the VAX-11/750 had faster disks if it had RA81 or especially RA82 disks. Here we go, from the HP "OpenVMS I/O Users Reference Manual” for 7.3-1. "On VAX systems, the RD53 and RD54 are 5.25-inch, full-height, Winchester-type drives with average access time of 38 ms and a data transfer rate of 0.625 MB per second.” Even the RA80 can beat that, basically any SDI disk on a VAX-11/750 would be noticeably faster. There is a reason why MicroVAX I and II systems with RD53/54 drives were considered to be good for Performance Tuning training. It’s really easy to notice improvements. Zane
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
There should be more /785s out there than plain /780... IIRC, most /780 were upgraded, as the "old" /780 had some EMC issues in the field? Am I dreaming this up? The thing that always made me wonder is where are all the 8600's. The 8600 was apparently the best selling large Vax, outselling the 780 and 750, so what happened to all of them? They weren't any bigger than a 780... C
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 2, 2022, at 9:14 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk > wrote: > > On 1/2/22 6:59 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: >> But can the Pi handle a gazillion students all time sharing at once @ 2400? > > I think that will depend on how you connect the serial terminals. > > I know that it's possible to establish network connectivity to serial > terminal servers. I don't know how many of those terminal servers can be > connected to SimH. It may be better to use LAT between terminal servers and > VMS running in the emulated VAX. > That was the whole point of LAT. At the time almost all serial terminals were connected by DZ-style interfaces, so 1 interrupt when you typed a character and a second interrupt after the character was echoed. LAT created a virtual circuit between the terminal server and a specific host. The slot layer ran over the virtual circuit between a logical terminal on the host and a physical terminal on the server. Data messages at the virtual circuit layer were limited to no more frequent than a terminal server parameter ( default 80mS). With appropriate optimizations and data availability it was possible to shrink the interrupt load on the host to 1-2 interrupts/ethernet packet (say around 1400 characters). There were a lot of internal religious wars around the use of CTERM/Telnet/LAT. After finishing DECnet-Ultrix I had a couple of weeks of spare time and implemented a prototype Ultrix-LAT - one of the good things that came out of having a MicroVAX I in my office! John. >> How long was the VAX timesharing era as I suspect networked PC's come out >> soon after that. > > Good question. > > > > -- > Grant. . . . > unix || die
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 2022-01-03 08:54, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: Not too surprising; the /780 and /785 are basically the same machine. (In fact, one could convert a /780 to a /785 by pulling out the /780 CPU cards and replacing them with a set of /785 cards; basically the same cards, with the 74S chips replaced with 74AS.) There should be more /785s out there than plain /780... IIRC, most /780 were upgraded, as the "old" /780 had some EMC issues in the field? Am I dreaming this up?
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> From: Grant Taylor > From that last picture, it looks like one of the plugs is five pronged, > and looks very similar to the 120/208V 30A 3? plug in one of the > pictures about the current 780 auction. Not too surprising; the /780 and /785 are basically the same machine. (In fact, one could convert a /780 to a /785 by pulling out the /780 CPU cards and replacing them with a set of /785 cards; basically the same cards, with the 74S chips replaced with 74AS.) Noel
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Sun, Jan 02, 2022 at 06:59:47PM -0700, ben via cctalk wrote: > On 2022-01-02 6:28 p.m., Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: [...] >> On that note a Raspberry Pi 2b running SIMH/VAX is about 1.6 VUPS. > But can the Pi handle a gazillion students all time sharing at once @ > 2400? How long was the VAX timesharing era as I suspect networked PC's > come out soon after that. Probably about as well as the actual VAXen back when I was failing my degree. I remember trying (IIRC) "SET PRI" once to lower my session priority one notch, and while I did eventually get a DCL prompt back, it was basically unusable. It was hardly a speed demon even at default priority, and I returned to my Amiga to get anything useful done. Raspberry Pis have between zero and six serial ports, depending on model, amount of faffing about, and whether you consider three-wire LVTTL to be a serial port or demand a full seven-wire RS232 port. Beyond that, you're going to have to multiplex connections over some other port, with Ethernet being by far the most obvious choice. Meanwhile, back at the university in the mists of time, they had rooms full of dumb terminals, mostly VT220s but some VT420s, connected to an X.25 PAD which then winged its way to the VAX cluster, and indeed onwards to JANET, so it's not "cheating" to multiplex over a packed-switched WAN connection on the Pi. I expect the VAX's directly-connected serial port(s) would have been reserved for the operator console. The Pi 4 is between three and ten times faster than the Pi 2, depending on task. I'd expect SIMH to fall towards the bottom of that range, but 5 VUPs isn't to be sniffed at, especially as that is presumably a per-core limitation and you could run a cluster of four of them. On a device which draws ~7W at full tilt.
RE: VAX 780 on eBay
> -Original Message- > From: cctalk On Behalf Of ben via cctalk > Sent: 03 January 2022 02:00 > To: cctalk@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: VAX 780 on eBay > > On 2022-01-02 6:28 p.m., Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > > On Jan 2, 2022, at 5:20 PM, Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk > wrote: > >> > >> I've always felt that in terms of performance the proper measure > >> would have been VUPS/kW :-) > >> > >> That way my little MicroVAX 2 would be able to hold its head high! > > > > On that note a Raspberry Pi 2b running SIMH/VAX is about 1.6 VUPS. > > > > Zane > > > But can the Pi handle a gazillion students all time sharing at once @ 2400? > How long was the VAX timesharing era as I suspect networked PC's come out > soon after that. > Ben. > Ben, Well if I remember properly the VAX couldn't at the time. I arranged for some folks from the place I worked to go on a VMS course at Liverpool University. They came back cursing the VAX and VMS and the sluggish terminal response times and the dreaded "type behind". With a few students on the VAX was great but get a decent load on and it crawled. The trouble was that VMS was usually used with the VAX handling character editing, so the scenario went something like this The user types an "a"... The line driver says "what on earth do I do with this "a"? I know I'll send it to the user .. oh dear the users code is paged out... ... oh dear there are no free pages so I have to page out another user .. and page in the users. .. and send it the "a" .. the user code says "oh and "a" has arrived, what do I do , I know I will echo it to the terminal and go to sleep .. in the mean time some one on the next terminal has typed a "B" The staff came back and said "how do we get a proper mainframe; we need an IBM with VM" where the editing is handled in the screen controller. ... so we asked for a large amount of disk storage, allocated a small room and they got an IBM 4381 as at the time the VAX didn't have disks as big as the 3380-3 . Dave
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
I had accounts on a MicroVAX 2 and a VAX 11/750. The microvax was faster for most compute jobs, but the 750 with 1/4 the memory handled more users mostly in text editors with the occasional compile or nroff/troff jobs. IIRC, the 750 had faster disks... Warner On Sun, Jan 2, 2022, 9:35 PM Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > The worst part is I know it’s 0.9 VUPS. > > Zane > > > > > On Jan 2, 2022, at 6:36 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk > wrote: > > > > On 2022-01-02 9:33 p.m., Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > >> Microvax 2 is .9 vup. > > > > Oops, Zane vupped up. > > > >> C > >>> On January 2, 2022 9:10:39 PM EST, Grant Taylor via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > >>> On 1/2/22 6:18 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > VAX-11/780 = 1 VUP > VAX-11/782 = 1.8 VUP > MicroVAX 1 = 0.3 VUP > MicroVAX 2 = 0.7 VUP > >>> > >>> Thank you Zane. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -- > >>> Grant. . . . > >>> unix || die > > > >
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
Yup. The 8600's (UMBC1 and 2) were connected to Bitnet, and I was a little Bitnaught until I found AI. It might have connected through the Gandalf network or something else, I'd have to check old printouts. Can I ask for a rough translation in to comparative VAX Units of Performance (VUPs)? I /think/ that the VAX 11/780 was 1 VUP. Kind of like MIPS, but I think they were going for throughput. The 780 may have had the same CPU speed as the Microvax II, but anytime you hit disk on the MV you were slugging down to the Q-Bus speed, going through a 4mb memory map window, and the RQDX3 wasn't either fast or very good IMO. The 780 would plow through the MASSBUS channel interfaces directly attached to memory (well, on a 780 everything went SBI) and RM03/RM80/RP07 drives were way faster than RD54's. And you could go to CI bus to talk to an HSC50 which could do more interesting stuff with RA81's and 82's.
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 11:31 PM Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > Oh yes, the 730 is probably the neatest little "pocket Vax". Especially > if you have the R80 drive as well as the RL02. The R80 did not use the > Unibus, correct? Correct. The R80 connects to the RB730 controller which has its own slot at the top of the backplane. My first UNIX install was on an 11/730. I ran a Usenet node (k-panda) for a couple of years on it. -ethan
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
Maybe you were thinking the 11/73? I think the 83 was quicker, and the 93/94 hit the 1 VUP speed... C On 1/2/2022 11:35 PM, Zane Healy wrote: The worst part is I know it’s 0.9 VUPS. Zane On Jan 2, 2022, at 6:36 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: On 2022-01-02 9:33 p.m., Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: Microvax 2 is .9 vup. Oops, Zane vupped up. C On January 2, 2022 9:10:39 PM EST, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: On 1/2/22 6:18 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: VAX-11/780 = 1 VUP VAX-11/782 = 1.8 VUP MicroVAX 1 = 0.3 VUP MicroVAX 2 = 0.7 VUP Thank you Zane. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
The worst part is I know it’s 0.9 VUPS. Zane > On Jan 2, 2022, at 6:36 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk > wrote: > > On 2022-01-02 9:33 p.m., Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: >> Microvax 2 is .9 vup. > > Oops, Zane vupped up. > >> C >>> On January 2, 2022 9:10:39 PM EST, Grant Taylor via cctalk >>> wrote: >>> On 1/2/22 6:18 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: VAX-11/780 = 1 VUP VAX-11/782 = 1.8 VUP MicroVAX 1 = 0.3 VUP MicroVAX 2 = 0.7 VUP >>> >>> Thank you Zane. >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Grant. . . . >>> unix || die >
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
The VAX-11/780 may be very slow, but it is still still quite a bit faster than my 11/730. That being said, the 11/730 captures the look and feel of that era of VAX in a much smaller volume and with a lot lower energy cost. Oh yes, the 730 is probably the neatest little "pocket Vax". Especially if you have the R80 drive as well as the RL02. The R80 did not use the Unibus, correct?
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 2022-01-02 9:33 p.m., Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: Microvax 2 is .9 vup. Oops, Zane vupped up. C On January 2, 2022 9:10:39 PM EST, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: On 1/2/22 6:18 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: VAX-11/780 = 1 VUP VAX-11/782 = 1.8 VUP MicroVAX 1 = 0.3 VUP MicroVAX 2 = 0.7 VUP Thank you Zane. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
Microvax 2 is .9 vup. C On January 2, 2022 9:10:39 PM EST, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: >On 1/2/22 6:18 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: >> VAX-11/780 = 1 VUP >> VAX-11/782 = 1.8 VUP >> MicroVAX 1 = 0.3 VUP >> MicroVAX 2 = 0.7 VUP > >Thank you Zane. > > > >-- >Grant. . . . >unix || die -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Sat, Jan 1, 2022, 12:33 Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > Largely true, but some disk drives (RP06? RP04?) use 3-phase spindle > motors. > The RP06 has 3-phase power input (and output, phase-rotated, for a second drive), but uses a single phase spindle motor. The US version runs the spindle between two phases, nominally 208V, but the motor is rated for operation on a range that spans 208V and 240V.
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/2/22 6:59 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: But can the Pi handle a gazillion students all time sharing at once @ 2400? I think that will depend on how you connect the serial terminals. I know that it's possible to establish network connectivity to serial terminal servers. I don't know how many of those terminal servers can be connected to SimH. It may be better to use LAT between terminal servers and VMS running in the emulated VAX. How long was the VAX timesharing era as I suspect networked PC's come out soon after that. Good question. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/2/22 6:18 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: VAX-11/780 = 1 VUP VAX-11/782 = 1.8 VUP MicroVAX 1 = 0.3 VUP MicroVAX 2 = 0.7 VUP Thank you Zane. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 2022-01-02 6:28 p.m., Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: On Jan 2, 2022, at 5:20 PM, Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk wrote: I've always felt that in terms of performance the proper measure would have been VUPS/kW :-) That way my little MicroVAX 2 would be able to hold its head high! On that note a Raspberry Pi 2b running SIMH/VAX is about 1.6 VUPS. Zane But can the Pi handle a gazillion students all time sharing at once @ 2400? How long was the VAX timesharing era as I suspect networked PC's come out soon after that. Ben.
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Jan 2, 2022, at 5:20 PM, Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk wrote: > > I've always felt that in terms of performance the proper measure would have > been VUPS/kW :-) > > That way my little MicroVAX 2 would be able to hold its head high! On that note a Raspberry Pi 2b running SIMH/VAX is about 1.6 VUPS. Zane
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
I've always felt that in terms of performance the proper measure would have been VUPS/kW :-) That way my little MicroVAX 2 would be able to hold its head high! Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept! Skype: tilbury2591nw.john...@ieee.org On 2022-01-02 20:18, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: On Jan 2, 2022, at 5:11 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: On 1/2/22 5:20 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: I keep thinking about it, but no. The 780 was neat from a historical perspective, and the 785 at UMBC (UMBC5) ran Ultrix (and was on the ARPANET, not the crappy Bitnet the 8600's were on) Is that Bitnet as in the Because it was there network that many IBM mainframes were on? but the 780 was really slow. I have a Microvax II here that would equal it CPU speed-wise, and the running of the main memory on the SBI was cool for the 782 option but was pretty slow. Can I ask for a rough translation in to comparative VAX Units of Performance (VUPs)? I /think/ that the VAX 11/780 was 1 VUP. VAX-11/780 = 1 VUP VAX-11/782 = 1.8 VUP MicroVAX 1 = 0.3 VUP MicroVAX 2 = 0.7 VUP Zane
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 2, 2022, at 5:11 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk > wrote: > > On 1/2/22 5:20 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: >> I keep thinking about it, but no. The 780 was neat from a historical >> perspective, and the 785 at UMBC (UMBC5) ran Ultrix (and was on the ARPANET, >> not the crappy Bitnet the 8600's were on) > Is that Bitnet as in the Because it was there network that many IBM > mainframes were on? > >> but the 780 was really slow. I have a Microvax II here that would equal it >> CPU speed-wise, and the running of the main memory on the SBI was cool for >> the 782 option but was pretty slow. > > Can I ask for a rough translation in to comparative VAX Units of Performance > (VUPs)? I /think/ that the VAX 11/780 was 1 VUP. VAX-11/780 = 1 VUP VAX-11/782 = 1.8 VUP MicroVAX 1 = 0.3 VUP MicroVAX 2 = 0.7 VUP Zane
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/2/22 5:20 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: I keep thinking about it, but no. The 780 was neat from a historical perspective, and the 785 at UMBC (UMBC5) ran Ultrix (and was on the ARPANET, not the crappy Bitnet the 8600's were on) Is that Bitnet as in the Because it was there network that many IBM mainframes were on? but the 780 was really slow. I have a Microvax II here that would equal it CPU speed-wise, and the running of the main memory on the SBI was cool for the 782 option but was pretty slow. Can I ask for a rough translation in to comparative VAX Units of Performance (VUPs)? I /think/ that the VAX 11/780 was 1 VUP. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 2, 2022, at 4:20 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk > wrote: > > On 1/2/2022 6:21 PM, Mark J. Blair via cctalk wrote: >> I am seriously lusting after that VAX-11/780 system on eBay > I keep thinking about it, but no. The 780 was neat from a historical > perspective, and the 785 at UMBC (UMBC5) ran Ultrix (and was on the ARPANET, > not the crappy Bitnet the 8600's were on) but the 780 was really slow. I have > a Microvax II here that would equal it CPU speed-wise, and the running of the > main memory on the SBI was cool for the 782 option but was pretty slow. The VAX-11/780 may be very slow, but it is still still quite a bit faster than my 11/730. That being said, the 11/730 captures the look and feel of that era of VAX in a much smaller volume and with a lot lower energy cost. > Now a Vax 8600 or 8650 That would be interesting. Partially due to the > Jupiter angle, partially because it was the fastest MASSBUS system with true > pdp11 compatibility. Oh, heck yeah! I'd love to have an 8600 or 8650, and I would see them as the logical conclusion of the VAX-11/7xx line despite the model number change. -- Mark J. Blair Blog:https://www.nf6x.net Git: https://gitlab.com/users/NF6X/groups HECnet: DOGPAK::MBLAIR Twitter: @nf6x
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/2/2022 6:21 PM, Mark J. Blair via cctalk wrote: I am seriously lusting after that VAX-11/780 system on eBay I keep thinking about it, but no. The 780 was neat from a historical perspective, and the 785 at UMBC (UMBC5) ran Ultrix (and was on the ARPANET, not the crappy Bitnet the 8600's were on) but the 780 was really slow. I have a Microvax II here that would equal it CPU speed-wise, and the running of the main memory on the SBI was cool for the 782 option but was pretty slow. Now a Vax 8600 or 8650 That would be interesting. Partially due to the Jupiter angle, partially because it was the fastest MASSBUS system with true pdp11 compatibility.
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
In the unlikely event that I win the lottery before that 11/780 batch sells, I'm going to buy it, buy a box truck, go pick it up, and then leave the box truck parked outside while I build a new building to put it all in. :D -- Mark J. Blair Blog:https://www.nf6x.net Git: https://gitlab.com/users/NF6X/groups HECnet: DOGPAK::MBLAIR Twitter: @nf6x
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 2, 2022, at 1:03 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk > wrote: > > On 2022-01-02 2:48 p.m., Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: >> > From: Jonathan Chapman >> > Last one that went auction-style on eBay went for $1,178.00 >> When was that? >> Do you have any details of the machine's config? >> That's a pretty good deal for a 780 (IMO). > > Someone I know won a '785, Feb 10, 2018, but it went for $1,000 (they bid > $1,178.50). HAHAHA! I love their bid amount. I can remember that I paid $1,575.42 (+tax etc.) for my T368C transmitter, because I was working in the GPS industry at the time, and I bid the GPS L1 frequency in MHz. The second bidder just missed outbidding me, and I got it for my maximum bid. -- Mark J. Blair Blog:https://www.nf6x.net Git: https://gitlab.com/users/NF6X/groups HECnet: DOGPAK::MBLAIR Twitter: @nf6x
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
The poles supplying my rural property just have one phase of 12kV on them, so even if SCE was willing to provide 3ø service to me, I bet it would be *expensive* to get the whole line upgraded to 3ø service all the way up to the last pole with all three phases present. I think that's probably within a mile or so, but that's still a bunch of poles to be upgraded. I use a rotary phase converter to feed my milling machine and lathe. If all three phases were on the pole already, I probably would have asked about getting 3ø service when I built on my property. But with just one phase on the poles, I didn't bother asking. They did just replace those overhead wires and some poles for fire prevention, and in the process they put in a whole great big pole-mounted switch that can be flipped from ground level just for my service disconnect, and another one for a neighbor's disconnect. It looks like they installed a regular 3ø disconnect switch, but only two of the wires are present and one switch pole is not connected. My service transitions from overhead to buried at that pole, and is buried for the last 100' or so to my ground-mounted transformer. Two of the poles they replaced were in the easement just on the other side of my property line. The contractors were happy with my cooperation in giving them access to my property so they could put trucks on both sides of the fence line. I also handed out 15 60mm ammo cans from my stash, since I like contractors on my property to be happy. So, they conveniently forgot to take the two old 45' poles they replaced with them at the end of the day, and I won't have to buy a new ham radio tower after all. ;) I am seriously lusting after that VAX-11/780 system on eBay, but I just don't have the available indoor space for it, or a big enough pile of cash to buy it and then spend enough to give it a good home. I'm glad that it's not in southern California, because if it was within an hour or two of driving I don't think I'd be able to resist the temptation. I do have my nice little 11/730 already. I'm eying the UNIBUS expansion bus from that seller to add to my 730, but I think should leave it available for the buyer of that 780. -- Mark J. Blair Blog:https://www.nf6x.net Git: https://gitlab.com/users/NF6X/groups HECnet: DOGPAK::MBLAIR Twitter: @nf6x
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
Ah yes! And I am in Arizona too.. Ed# Sent from the all new AOL app for Android On Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 2:12 PM, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: On 2022-01-02 16:03, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: > On 2022-01-02 2:48 p.m., Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: >> > From: Jonathan Chapman >> >> > Last one that went auction-style on eBay went for $1,178.00 >> >> When was that? >> >> Do you have any details of the machine's config? >> >> That's a pretty good deal for a 780 (IMO). > > Someone I know won a '785, Feb 10, 2018, but it went for $1,000 (they > bid $1,178.50). I didn't bid on it, it was too far, now I'm on the east coast, and there is one in Arizona :(
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/2/22 12:16 PM, Jonathan Chapman via cctalk wrote: In North America? Good luck! Part of what got me to buy a smallish industrial building was needing three phase. It's usually cheaper/easier to either use a VFD if it's for motor equipment, or a rotary converter, than trying to get the power company to give you three phase. Even if it's literally on the pole behind your house, they want $LOL to make the connection. So I've gathered. Commercial, industrial, and rural farm tend to be the places where 3ɸ is a viable option. Beyond that, ya rotary converter. The more that I learn about VFDs, the less that I like them. Especially for anything electronic. Yes, these "melted the socket, never tripped the breaker" failures are a result of crap receptacles. On basically all good brands of receptacles, the 15A and 20A have the same internal parts, anyway. It's my opinion that anything in a shop area, or really even the kitchen, ought to be spec-grade receptacles. They're not that expensive when you consider they'll last a lifetime. We always require Hubble spec-grade, and that's what I've installed at the house, too. I'd much rather spend the additional money and have what you are referring to as Hubble spec-grade outlets throughout the house. I've gotten to the point that I don't want to put up with / tolerate sub-par things that are going to cause me to have more work in the future. Indeed, you can have a continuous load up to 12A with no special NEC rules on a regular old branch circuit. :-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/2/22 2:03 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: https://i.imgur.com/OjQWk55.jpg From that last picture, it looks like one of the plugs is five pronged, and looks very similar to the 120/208V 30A 3ɸ plug in one of the pictures about the current 780 auction. I can't tell if the other plug is a three or four pronged plug. It It almost looks like a 3 pronged plug which I assume is a NEMA 5-15 or 5-20 which would imply 120V 15A or 20A 1ɸ. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 2022-01-02 16:03, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: On 2022-01-02 2:48 p.m., Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > From: Jonathan Chapman > Last one that went auction-style on eBay went for $1,178.00 When was that? Do you have any details of the machine's config? That's a pretty good deal for a 780 (IMO). Someone I know won a '785, Feb 10, 2018, but it went for $1,000 (they bid $1,178.50). I didn't bid on it, it was too far, now I'm on the east coast, and there is one in Arizona :(
Re: 11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
That's the one! Clearly I forgot some of the details. Thanks, Jonathan ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Sunday, January 2nd, 2022 at 16:03, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: > On 2022-01-02 2:48 p.m., Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > > > From: Jonathan Chapman > > > > > Last one that went auction-style on eBay went for $1,178.00 > > > > > > When was that? > > > > Do you have any details of the machine's config? > > > > That's a pretty good deal for a 780 (IMO). > > Someone I know won a '785, Feb 10, 2018, but it went for $1,000 (they > > bid $1,178.50). > > https://i.imgur.com/wRV28mj.jpg > > https://i.imgur.com/Nh60Wwh.jpg > > https://i.imgur.com/OjQWk55.jpg > > > Noel
11/785 on ebay (2018) - was Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 2022-01-02 2:48 p.m., Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > From: Jonathan Chapman > Last one that went auction-style on eBay went for $1,178.00 When was that? Do you have any details of the machine's config? That's a pretty good deal for a 780 (IMO). Someone I know won a '785, Feb 10, 2018, but it went for $1,000 (they bid $1,178.50). https://i.imgur.com/wRV28mj.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Nh60Wwh.jpg https://i.imgur.com/OjQWk55.jpg Noel
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/2/22 11:16 AM, Jonathan Chapman via cctalk wrote: >> I'd really like 3ɸ at home for a number of different things. > > In North America? Good luck! Part of what got me to buy a smallish industrial > building was needing three phase. It's usually cheaper/easier to either use a > VFD if it's for motor equipment, or a rotary converter, than trying to get > the power company to give you three phase. Even if it's literally on the pole > behind your house, they want $LOL to make the connection. Availability depends on your utility and location. It's not uncommon for a farm to have 3-phase service--it's needed for things like hay dryers. For example, here's my rural electric co-op's rate sheet for 3-phase service: https://laneelectric.com/wp-content/uploads/GS-3-General-Service-Three-Phase-Eff-1-1-20.pdf By way of comparison, here's their single-phase general-service rate sheet: https://laneelectric.com/wp-content/uploads/GS-1-General-Service-Single-Phase-Eff-1-1-20.pdf The real sting is for 3-phase electric vehicle charging stations: https://laneelectric.com/wp-content/uploads/EV-1-Electric-Vehicle-Charging-Station-Eff-1-1-20.pdf In my rural location, 3-phase 11KV buried is available at a disconnect box at the street--single phase is buried along the driveway and terminates at a transformer on a pad in my front yard. Buried 240/120V single-phase 200A service then goes to the house. --Chuck
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> From: Jonathan Chapman > Last one that went auction-style on eBay went for $1,178.00 When was that? Do you have any details of the machine's config? That's a pretty good deal for a 780 (IMO). Noel
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> I'd really like 3ɸ at home for a number of different things. In North America? Good luck! Part of what got me to buy a smallish industrial building was needing three phase. It's usually cheaper/easier to either use a VFD if it's for motor equipment, or a rotary converter, than trying to get the power company to give you three phase. Even if it's literally on the pole behind your house, they want $LOL to make the connection. > It depends on the quality of the socket. My understanding is that a > NEMA 5-15 is rated to sustain 15A at 120V indefinitely. Then there are > NEMA 5-20s which are rated for 20A. Yes, these "melted the socket, never tripped the breaker" failures are a result of crap receptacles. On basically all good brands of receptacles, the 15A and 20A have the same internal parts, anyway. It's my opinion that anything in a shop area, or really even the kitchen, ought to be spec-grade receptacles. They're not that expensive when you consider they'll last a lifetime. We always require Hubble spec-grade, and that's what I've installed at the house, too. > So ... over 10A continuous seems > quite possible if not expected with some installations. Indeed, you can have a continuous load up to 12A with no special NEC rules on a regular old branch circuit. Thanks, Jonathan
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 2:00 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: This is wise, but 240v is quite nice for computer equipment. I had an electrician run a 240v 30a (10g wire) circuit out to my work shed, where a subpanel is installed with 120v 15a and 240v 15a circuits for the equipment. I had two 120v 20A circuits, one on each leg of the 120v/240v residential feed, run to my computer equipment in the house I sold a few years ago. I'd like to have the same again once I finally set things up the way that I want to. I'd really like 3ɸ at home for a number of different things. That would allow me to run computer equipment at 208v which, as I understand it, is more efficient than 120v. I don't think anything I do would actually /need/ 240v. I'd also like 3ɸ for other things in the house, namely wood working tools. 240 just allows you to get twice the power to the device using the same size wire (14g for 15a for example). Ya. One might wonder why higher voltage means that you can get twice the power (wattage) to something. But that's where the fact that most wire used for 120v circuits is rated for up to 250v which means that the same wire can safely carry 240v. Hence how you can get twice the power by doubling the voltage. But modern switching computer supplies are more efficient at 240v than 120v so you waste less power. Do you have something that you can point to as reference? Where does 208v compare to 240v / 120v? 120 is good for like light bulbs and stuff. Drawing over say 10a continuous at 120 will pretty much burn up sockets and such in short order. It depends on the quality of the socket. My understanding is that a NEMA 5-15 is rated to sustain 15A at 120V indefinitely. Then there are NEMA 5-20s which are rated for 20A. So ... over 10A continuous seems quite possible if not expected with some installations. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 2:44 PM, Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: The 'installation and configuration' manual for this machine would be huge. They don't have it. On bitsavers. I just paged through it to check power consumption. Plus, it's a mainframe. Not even any blinkenlights. Without setting it up as a complete system with everything interconnected properly, how would you even know it was running correctly? Well, you need to hook up a serial console terminal, and the console floppy needs to work. That has power-up self tests, which will be quite helpful in the beginning. Then, there would be a diagnostic tape that could run further detailed tests. Plus you can safely assume at least some of the system unit interconnect cables are missing. These should all be in the manuals on bitsavers. I'm pretty sure they have the complete /780 print set, which was 11x17" and about 2" thick! Potentially weeks, even months of restoration work for a buyer, before even daring to apply power. Then if there's anything wrong in the electronics, good luck diagnosing and getting spare parts. Yes, getting a copy of the diags tape would be hugely helpful, but probably somebody has that. Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 3:19 PM, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote: For clarification -- the 11/780 is not liquid cooled. The seller mixed up some photos between the TU77 listing and the 11/780 listing (the TU77 listing has photos of the 11/780's backplane in it just to make things more fun). Agreed on all other counts, though, powering this thing up blindly is a dumb idea. Right! The cooling gear on the back of the TU77 is to cool the bearing air, to keep from melting the tape. We had nasty tape sticking when running backups with our original TU77. DEC told us about the problem and advised to open the cabinet back door when running the drive for long periods. Then, they installed a mod kit with the extra tubes and radiator and additional fans, and that solved the issue. The VAX 11/780 is most certainly air-cooled, but does have impressive centrifugal blowers shooting vast quantities of air out the back. Watch out, women with short skirts, when you walk behind the CPU! DEC apparently designed a liquid-cooled VAX code-named Aquarius, but it was never fielded. A later air-cooled version was called Aridus. Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 2:35 PM, ben via cctalk wrote: On 2022-01-01 12:36 p.m., Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: On 1/1/22 1:11 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: Just out of curiosity, how much current is needed for an 11/780? Depending on options, the CPU cabinet would draw about 10-12 A per line, 3-Phase 208 V. And, that is on the upper end of the range. Starting surge would be a lot more, of course. Jon How much power is used for memory and hard drives? memory power was provided by the row of power supplies below the CPU cards as seen in the pics. Memory power on the /780 was pretty insignificant, as that system didn't have large memories. The original /780 had 256 KB memory cards, I think the one in the current sale has the newer memory system with 1 MB/card. Hard drive power was QUITE substantial, the bigger drives had pretty big 3 phase motors to spin the big disk packs/HDA's. Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 1, 2022, at 4:19 PM, Josh Dersch via cctalk > wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 1, 2022 at 12:47 PM Guy Dunphy via cctalk > wrote: > >> ... >> But you're all focussed on that, and missing another important detail. The >> machine has a liquid cooling system. >> ... > > For clarification -- the 11/780 is not liquid cooled. Correct. Did DEC make any liquid cooled machines? There was a large VAX which was going to be, code-named Aquarius, but I think they canceled that one and redid the design to be air-cooled, codename Aridus. That's the VAX 9000 if I remember right. paul
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Sat, Jan 1, 2022 at 12:47 PM Guy Dunphy via cctalk wrote: > At 07:50 PM 1/01/2022 +, you wrote: > >> > >True. But if you're trying to get > $5000 for something, it doesn't seem > unreasonable to suggest that investing a bit in getting an extension cord > run to the location of the machine would be a good idea. The absence of > that effort makes me wonder if the owner knows what the outcome of such a > test would be and doesn't want to have to report it. > >> > > > >But what would that accomplish? I think testing something like this > requires a lot more effort than plugging it in and hitting the circuit > breaker. To test this to see if some ODT comes up probably requires quite a > lot of effort (locate a terminal/pc, wire it up, figure out where to plug > it into the 780, etc. If this guy is a bulk dealer I would be surprised if > he has the knowledge to do anything more than a power test which, again, > would not be very useful and could even be detrimental. > > > Exactly. The machine has a 3-phase 208/240V plug, they don't have such an > outlet. Their efforts stop right there. > > But you're all focussed on that, and missing another important detail. The > machine has a liquid cooling system. > Some of the hoses look like they are Tygon, in the age-decayed brittle > stage. Touch them and they crumble away. > Running the machine without cooling would utterly wreck it. Even if they > solved the mains power problem, > they would be very unwise to actually power it up. > For clarification -- the 11/780 is not liquid cooled. The seller mixed up some photos between the TU77 listing and the 11/780 listing (the TU77 listing has photos of the 11/780's backplane in it just to make things more fun). Agreed on all other counts, though, powering this thing up blindly is a dumb idea. - Josh
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 10:40 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: On Jan 1, 2022, at 1:12 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: This: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275084268137 The starting price is expensive, but probably not utterly unreasonable, given that: - the 780 was the first VAX, and thus historically important - 780's are incredibly rare; this is the first one I recall seeing for sale in the classic computer era (versus several -11/70's, /40s, etc) - this one appears to be reasonably complete; no idea if all the key CPU boards are included, but it's things like the backplane, etc (all of which seem to be there) which would be completely impossible to find now - if any boards _are_ missing, there's at least the _hope_ that they can be located (780 boards seem to come by every so often on eBait), since people seem to keep boards, not realizing that without the other bits they are useless Interesting, but the argument for why it's not tested is implausible which makes me very suspicious. I suppose there might be a few American homes that have only 110 volt power, but I'm hard pressed to think of any I have ever seen, and that includes really old houses. Without replacing the power controller in the 11/780, you need 208v 3-phase to run it. It's not impossible...nothing in the CPU actually *needs* 3-phase as the individual power supplies are 120v but the overall maximum load is greater than a 30A 120v circuit. TTFN - Guy
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
In my current house I have done 240V/50A wiring, 240V/50A Sub Panel, lots of 240V/30A outlets. None of which I would advise the usual amateur to do. :-) This is wise, but 240v is quite nice for computer equipment. I had an electrician run a 240v 30a (10g wire) circuit out to my work shed, where a subpanel is installed with 120v 15a and 240v 15a circuits for the equipment. 240 just allows you to get twice the power to the device using the same size wire (14g for 15a for example). But modern switching computer supplies are more efficient at 240v than 120v so you waste less power. 120 is good for like light bulbs and stuff. Drawing over say 10a continuous at 120 will pretty much burn up sockets and such in short order.
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
The TU77 has a 3ɸ power plug on it. That probably explains why testing it would be problematic in a residential settings. A TU77 can run on household 240v. If I recall it used the 240 for the big blower motor and the rest of the stuff ran on 110. 1ɸ240V is vastly different than 3ɸ120/208V. 1 phase 240 is just 2 120 volts out of phase. Looking at the 780 it has 3-5 power supplies in it, each one running on 120v. My guess is the main fan blower is 3 phase 208, and each of the power supplies is run off a 208-common leg (giving 120v). Big ole monster, but if you can put a 240v motor on the blower you should be able to rewire it to run on a couple of household 240 circuits. C (Ran a KS10, TU77, and 2 RM03's in a spare bedroom once. It has... upgraded wiring)
RE: VAX 780 on eBay
At 07:50 PM 1/01/2022 +, you wrote: >> >True. But if you're trying to get > $5000 for something, it doesn't seem >unreasonable to suggest that investing a bit in getting an extension cord run >to the location of the machine would be a good idea. The absence of that >effort makes me wonder if the owner knows what the outcome of such a test >would be and doesn't want to have to report it. >> > >But what would that accomplish? I think testing something like this requires a >lot more effort than plugging it in and hitting the circuit breaker. To test >this to see if some ODT comes up probably requires quite a lot of effort >(locate a terminal/pc, wire it up, figure out where to plug it into the 780, >etc. If this guy is a bulk dealer I would be surprised if he has the knowledge >to do anything more than a power test which, again, would not be very useful >and could even be detrimental. Exactly. The machine has a 3-phase 208/240V plug, they don't have such an outlet. Their efforts stop right there. But you're all focussed on that, and missing another important detail. The machine has a liquid cooling system. Some of the hoses look like they are Tygon, in the age-decayed brittle stage. Touch them and they crumble away. Running the machine without cooling would utterly wreck it. Even if they solved the mains power problem, they would be very unwise to actually power it up. The 'installation and configuration' manual for this machine would be huge. They don't have it. Plus, it's a mainframe. Not even any blinkenlights. Without setting it up as a complete system with everything interconnected properly, how would you even know it was running correctly? Plus you can safely assume at least some of the system unit interconnect cables are missing. Potentially weeks, even months of restoration work for a buyer, before even daring to apply power. Then if there's anything wrong in the electronics, good luck diagnosing and getting spare parts. Considering the uncertainties plus high transport, restoration, operating and manhour costs, who'd buy it? A museum perhaps? Or someone wanting a 'static display object' never intending to run it. Guy
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
TU77: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275083502085 (The 11/780 is visible in That looks complete with the TM03 formatter. RM05: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284587865252 That looks like it's missing the MassBus adapter. I think two RM05's shared a cabinet between them that contained the MBA logic. Not sure if a RM03's MBA will work, quite possible (I have an RM80 that is on top of a RM03 controller MBA) CZ
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> Way more because of inertia. Not quite a UPS, but short power glitches enough > to blink the computer room lights are not going to be seen by the mainframe. Indeed, one can purchase flywheel systems to ride through genset startup time on inertia! Thanks, Jonathan
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 2022-01-01 12:36 p.m., Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: On 1/1/22 1:11 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: Just out of curiosity, how much current is needed for an 11/780? Depending on options, the CPU cabinet would draw about 10-12 A per line, 3-Phase 208 V. And, that is on the upper end of the range. Starting surge would be a lot more, of course. Jon How much power is used for memory and hard drives? Ben.
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 1:56 PM, W2HX via cctalk wrote: The other benefit to 3phase power to something like a computer is that the filter caps required can be much smaller. Once you rectify three phases 60* you get MUCH less ripple because every 60 degrees you have a new peak arriving. When you have a real gas (electron) guzzler like one of these, DC filtering becomes an issue. But, they DIDN'T! All power supplies on the /780 were single phase. On the IBM 370/145, they used a motor/generator set to convert 208/3 phase 60 Hz power to 415 Hz 3-phase 120 V regulated power, then fed that to 3-phase transformer/rectifiers, and finally to low-drop regulators. They also used "electronic capacitors", which was a scheme to pull extra current through the smoothing inductor during the voltage peaks, to even out the ripple. The 370/145 had 2 power supplies, one for +1.25 V 390A and the other for -3 V 390A. Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 1:50 PM, W2HX via cctalk wrote: True. But if you're trying to get > $5000 for something, it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that investing a bit in getting an extension cord run to the location of the machine would be a good idea. The absence of that effort makes me wonder if the owner knows what the outcome of such a test would be and doesn't want to have to report it. But what would that accomplish? I think testing something like this requires a lot more effort than plugging it in and hitting the circuit breaker. To test this to see if some ODT comes up probably requires quite a lot of effort (locate a terminal/pc, wire it up, figure out where to plug it into the 780, etc. If this guy is a bulk dealer I would be surprised if he has the knowledge to do anything more than a power test which, again, would not be very useful and could even be detrimental. The /780 needs a readable "console floppy" and working drive. It loads microcode from the floppy and runs some power-on self-tests before even starting the VAX CPU. Not real likely the floppy is going to be in good condition or the drive, either. Also, the cooling blowers below the circuit boards are likely to be seized and need new bearings. Not to mention the cap banks in the power supplies at least need to be re-formed. Likely, this machine has not been turned on since 1990 or so, (just guessing). Jon
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> On Jan 1, 2022, at 3:08 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk > wrote: > > On 1/1/22 12:44 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: >> ... >> And of course 400 Hz gave them an additional advantage in reduced >> transformer size and reduced ripple (for a given filter capacitor). > > I was going to ask how the frequency altered the size of the ripple, but "for > a given filter capacitor" makes sense. You are messing with the ratio and > having a fixed value "for a given filter capacitor". -- If I'm even > remotely understanding correctly. The impedance of a capacitor is inversely proportional to the frequency. Given a desired ripple for a given load, you get the needed capacitor impedance, so if you increase the freqency you'd end up with smaller capacitors. You see this, big time, in modern switching supplies, where the frequency may into the many kHz or sometimes even a MHz or so, resulting in tiny filter capacitors. >> They'd do this even in devices that don't draw large amounts of power, for >> example the DD60 console display gets its power (other than fans which are >> single phase mains power) from the 400 Hz 3-phase supply feeding the >> mainframe. I'd be surprised if it uses even a kW, so this was probably a >> case of "why not since it's there to be used". > > My understanding is that some of the special power requirements had more to > do with isolation and cleanliness / quality of the power. Meaning don't try > to power the equipment off of the same circuit(s) that motors and the likes > are on which will induce lots of noise on the line, some of which might make > it into the computer and adversely effect things. True. And I forgot about the fact that you'd want to run devices interconnected by logic level signals (which is the case here) from a common power source. A lot of CDC peripherals are transformer coupled (the coax signals used in I/O channels are built that way) but the DD60 connections are DC-coupled. > The motor / generator provides a quite strong isolation for things like that. > Probably more so than just a normal transformer. Way more because of inertia. Not quite a UPS, but short power glitches enough to blink the computer room lights are not going to be seen by the mainframe. paul
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On Sat, Jan 1, 2022 at 11:55 AM W2HX via cctalk wrote: > > > True. But if you're trying to get > $5000 for something, it doesn't seem > unreasonable to suggest that investing a bit in getting an extension cord > run to the location of the machine would be a good idea. The absence of > that effort makes me wonder if the owner knows what the outcome of such a > test would be and doesn't want to have to report it. > > > > But what would that accomplish? I think testing something like this > requires a lot more effort than plugging it in and hitting the circuit > breaker. To test this to see if some ODT comes up probably requires quite a > lot of effort (locate a terminal/pc, wire it up, figure out where to plug > it into the 780, etc. If this guy is a bulk dealer I would be surprised if > he has the knowledge to do anything more than a power test which, again, > would not be very useful and could even be detrimental. > Right. I'll pay significantly less for an 11/780 that some random scrapper has powered up. - Josh > > > 73 Eugene W2HX > Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: > https://www.youtube.com/c/w2hx-channel/videos > > > >
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
It splits the input 3 phase 120/208 30A input to separate 120V circuits. 3*30A 120V circuits if you want. Mine used about 3KVA, so it'll actually (just barely) run off of a single 30A/120V or multiple 15/20A 120V circuits if you rewire the input a bit. Patrick Finnegan On Sat, Jan 1, 2022, 14:11 Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > On 1/1/22 1:53 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > On 1/1/22 11:46 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > >> Having 240 in your house does not necessarily mean you have 240 > >> outlets anywhere and not everyone is capable of doing their own house > >> wiring. > > > > There may even be 240 V outlets but not available when / where needed. > > E.g. in use (stove, dryer, water heater) or too far away to be able to > > plug the VAX in for testing. Then there's also the chance that the > > plugs don't match. > > > > I do 120 V wiring semi-regular. I've done 240 V wiring before. I'm > > sure that I'll do it again. But I'm always afraid that failure mode on > > the 240 V is going to fail spectacularly. My only saving grace is that > > the breaker will almost certainly trip in short order to mitigate my > > failure. Thankfully no breaker trips thusfar. > > In my current house I have done 240V/50A wiring, 240V/50A Sub Panel, > lots of 240V/30A outlets. None of which I would advise the usual > amateur to do. :-) > > Just out of curiosity, how much current is needed for an 11/780? > > bill > > >
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 12:59 PM, Jonathan Chapman via cctalk wrote: They're 180 degrees out. Sufficiently different for a number of applications, but certainly not all! They are 180° out of phase with respect to each other. But they are the same single phase when viewed by anything outside of them. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 12:44 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: Could be. For the CDC case, I see actual 3-phase DC supplies, i.e., 3 phase bridge rectifiers fed by 3-phase transformers. Interesting. That brings to mind 6ɸ DC supplies. -- Two typical 3ɸ rectifier networks (making DC pulses be 60° apart) separated by a ∆ / Y or Y / ∆ transformer inducing a 30° phase shift between them. Thereby causing a net effect of 12 x DC pulses 30° apart. If you run those off one phase the ripple would be a lot larger. Indeed. And of course 400 Hz gave them an additional advantage in reduced transformer size and reduced ripple (for a given filter capacitor). I was going to ask how the frequency altered the size of the ripple, but "for a given filter capacitor" makes sense. You are messing with the ratio and having a fixed value "for a given filter capacitor". -- If I'm even remotely understanding correctly. They'd do this even in devices that don't draw large amounts of power, for example the DD60 console display gets its power (other than fans which are single phase mains power) from the 400 Hz 3-phase supply feeding the mainframe. I'd be surprised if it uses even a kW, so this was probably a case of "why not since it's there to be used". My understanding is that some of the special power requirements had more to do with isolation and cleanliness / quality of the power. Meaning don't try to power the equipment off of the same circuit(s) that motors and the likes are on which will induce lots of noise on the line, some of which might make it into the computer and adversely effect things. The motor / generator provides a quite strong isolation for things like that. Probably more so than just a normal transformer. The frequency change means that a simple isolation transformer won't suffice. The higher frequency also has benefits of reducing the size of other down stream components. I find this to be interesting to learn, even if I'll almost certainly never actually work near anything that uses it. -- Grant. . . . unix || die
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
> I have questions > > Where are you getting two /different/ phases? -- Remember, the > different legs on residential 120/240 wiring are really the same single > phase. They're 180 degrees out. Sufficiently different for a number of applications, but certainly not all! Thanks, Jonathan
RE: VAX 780 on eBay
The other benefit to 3phase power to something like a computer is that the filter caps required can be much smaller. Once you rectify three phases 60* you get MUCH less ripple because every 60 degrees you have a new peak arriving. When you have a real gas (electron) guzzler like one of these, DC filtering becomes an issue. 73 Eugene W2HX Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/w2hx-channel/videos -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Jonathan Chapman via cctalk Sent: Saturday, January 1, 2022 2:35 PM To: Grant Taylor ; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: VAX 780 on eBay > I think that's the same with all the /computer/ equipment that I've > seen which connects to 3ɸ power. A single phase could be used for all of it. Computer exist which require three phase at a unit power supply level. It's often also used for large blowers if the cabinet(s) don't strictly require airflow from e.g. a raised floor. > But I'm told that it's simpler / more economical (from a wiring / > cable plant point of view) to deliver more power to the equipment as > 3ɸ than it is 1ɸ. It also saves you on current-carrying conductors for raceway fill calculations as long as your power factor isn't too bad. Thanks, Jonathan
Re: VAX 780 on eBay
On 1/1/22 12:43 PM, Dennis Boone via cctalk wrote: My Multiprise 2003/205 claims to want a pair of 3-phase inputs. Is it assumed that those 2 x 3ɸ inputs are feed from different paths, thus path redundancy? I'd think that the phases would be the same. I've run it on two "phases" on a single side. I have questions Where are you getting two /different/ phases? -- Remember, the different legs on residential 120/240 wiring are really the same single phase. How do you get *two* /different/ phases without access to a *third* phase? There are only a few places in the U.S.A. (and I'm not aware of anywhere else in the world) that actually have 2ɸ power (where the ɸ are 90° out of phase with each other). What is a phase vs what is a line comes into context here. It bitches, of course, I could see how wiring two legs of a 120/240 1ɸ as if it were 2 phases of a 3ɸ supply would make something mad. and one loses the intended redundancy, but it runs. Indeed. But if one is doing this, chances are fairly good that one is most interested in the fact that /it/ /runs/ and cares much less about /redundancy/. ;-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die
RE: VAX 780 on eBay
> True. But if you're trying to get > $5000 for something, it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that investing a bit in getting an extension cord run to the location of the machine would be a good idea. The absence of that effort makes me wonder if the owner knows what the outcome of such a test would be and doesn't want to have to report it. > But what would that accomplish? I think testing something like this requires a lot more effort than plugging it in and hitting the circuit breaker. To test this to see if some ODT comes up probably requires quite a lot of effort (locate a terminal/pc, wire it up, figure out where to plug it into the 780, etc. If this guy is a bulk dealer I would be surprised if he has the knowledge to do anything more than a power test which, again, would not be very useful and could even be detrimental. 73 Eugene W2HX Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/w2hx-channel/videos
