On 01/21/2018 01:25 PM, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote:
So, I picked up (and I did just carry it into the house,
and now I hurt) a Microvax II from another list member
yesterday. Cosmetically it's a disaster (BA123 has a
cracked top panel, broken wheels, missing front door,
missing right-rear panel) but internally it appears to be
complete; board wise we have:
M7606 - CPU
M7608 - 4MB ram
M9047 - grant continuity
M7504 - DEQNA ethernet
M3104 - DHV11 8-port serial
M7555 - RQDX3 disk controller
M7546 - TX50 controller
... it's got a TK50 and hard drive (no idea of capacity).
Operational status is a complete unknown, and I have
absolutely zero knowledge about these systems - so my
question at this stage is what background reading I need
to be doing in terms of pre-powerup* checks, actually
hooking a console, if there's a suggested minimal config I
can use to diag the CPU, and then (assuming it gets to
that point) how to actually use the thing (I'm assuming it
was running VMS rather than Ultrix, but I don't know for
sure). I'm wondering there aren't any handy tutorials out
there, alongside whatever DEC docs are recommended.
* e.g. for most machines I'd be thinking in terms of
pulling all boards/drives, hooking up a dummy load to
whatever PSU rails required it, and then at least running
the PSU up in isolation first, but I don't know to what
extent this machine requires some logic in place for the
PSU to even run.
Well, you need to hook up a serial terminal, set the baud
rate, and see if it gives the power-on self diagnostic sequence.
The TK50 is likely not going to work due to deteriorated
rubber rollers and such. Does it have a disk drive?
If not, it won't do much. If it does, it is a bit iffy if
the drive will spin up and unlock heads. I have a similar
setup here, but my SCSI disk drive died. The CPU still
fires up just fine - amazing for a machine I ran for 21 years.
Jon
