On 8/14/2018 2:12 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote:
On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 11:36 PM, robertbeauchamp33--- via cctalk
<cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
My mother is moving and her spouse has a MicroVax I he bought new back in 1984
for some crazy amount. I don’t see this model listed in your chart? Can you
tell me if there is any value to this machine? He also has two original
monitors.
There is some value, since it's in a BA23 and _is_ a VAX, even as slow
as can be. They are somewhat uncommon because they were only
available for a couple of years unlike most other DEC machines.
Having used one in the mid-80s when they were brand new (and $10,000),
they are quite slow and painful and limited to, I think, various
versions of MicroVMS and VMS 4.x, depending on disk size (MicroVMS
fits on a 30MB disk when the full version would not). I don't recall
if there is any support for them in VMS 5.x - the max RAM is 4MB
(unlike later Qbus VAXen, the RAM is _on_ the Qbus) but one could
easily put a newer disk controller in there other than the RQDX1 and a
larger disk.
Be aware that most (if not all?) QBus SCSI controllers appear to be
incompatible with the MicroVAX I. I'm not entirely sure why this is,
but none of the Emulex, CMD, or Dilog controllers I've tried are listed
as compatible with the system -- they all state compatibility with the
II and later .I've tried using them in my MicroVAX I with no success.
VMS fails to boot, and Ultrix kernel panics. Not to hijack the thread,
but does anyone have any idea why this might be? I'd like to get the
system doing something interesting and not having to rely on very old
MFM disks would be nice...
- Josh
As shipped, though, I don't think the uVAX-I arrived
with a large enough disk for VMS 5.0, at least not without a very
manual, very painful install.
Where is this? (city? country? continent?)
I still have the one from work from 1984 so I'm not in the market, but
people here do want to know.
-ethan
