I (via Purdue surplus) had some NCR Worldmark 5500's (5 refrigerator sized cabinets each with two MCA bus mulit-processor Pentium Pro systems, and a total of 4TB of storage, back when that was about 1000 disks). I still have the mutli-cpu Pentium box that was the management system for that, but it hasn't been powered up in a long time.
On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 1:01 PM Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > That was it: MP-RAS. It was neat, kind of good, but to be honest Windows > NT 3.51 and 4.0 ran very well on it. > > Just weighed a literal ton. For all I know it's still in the basement of > their Dupont Center office (now long closed) > > C > > On 7/21/2020 11:50 AM, Kevin Bowling wrote: > > Wow, would love to have a machine like that. The “weird unix” was > > probably MP-RAS which was NCR’s SysVr4. NCR was selling massive x86 MCA > > systems for Terradata setups in the early ‘90s. > > > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 8:54 AM Chris Zach via cctalk > > <cctalk@classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote: > > > > Now in terms of the most MANLY system I worked on, that would be the > > NCR3550 we had at the IEEE Computer Society. When I arrived in 1993 > it > > had been donated, but was doing nothing with 4 486 CPUs in it and a > > weird copy of AT&T unix. I took one look at the 256 bit interleaved > > memory architecture the 3 levels of cache with affinity, the infinite > > amount of space for disks, and the dual micro-channel busses and > > fell in > > *love* > > > > We talked to NCR, upgraded it to 512mb memory, 8 Pentium Pro/200 > CPUs, > > and dual Microchannel busses with FDDI and Ethernet interfaces. > Loaded > > it with disks, installed Windows NT 4.0 on it, and turned it into > > TALOS, > > the main server for the IEEE Computer Society's Digital Library > > (which I > > built). > > > > Partnered with Anderson and Netscape to multi-thread commerce server > > (SSL), built an E-account system in Lotus Domino/Notes, and loaded up > > all of our SGML with an SGML to HTML converter (Dynaweb) and a custom > > tool that could convert Tek math to GIFs on the fly. That process > could > > take advantage of all 8 CPUs and render complex math articles in > > real time. > > > > Also did e-commerce for awhile with online credit card processing for > > memberships and conferences (SuperComputing/95 was the first > conference > > to do on-line credit cards, I built that too because I was sick and > > tired of keying in the cards myself. Laziness is next to godliness) > > > > It served for years as the CS Digital Library core server with > > 30,000-40,000 accounts in active use. Man that thing was a truck, I > > wish > > I knew what had happened to it. > > > > And to think, it all started with the computer room ceiling > collapsing > > from all the RS232 cables from the Vax and crushing our Sun Sparc 20 > > web > > server that kicked off this whole thing. > > > > I should write a book or an article about that. We did so much that > was > > so... new... and all of that could be forgotten like tears in the > > rain.... > > > > CZ > > > > On 7/16/2020 11:40 AM, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > >>> Had a full compliment of memory, > > >>> max internal disk on the ATA controller, > > >> > > >> ATA? That long ago? > > >> > > >> Possible but unusual in a server, I would have thought. > > > > > > Funny story about that - I just setup a Systempro XL at home to > > play with. It is fully decked out w/ dual processor 50MHZ 486s (not > > DX2), 512MB of memory, a 4GB SCSI Boot Drive and six 2GB SCSI drives > > in RAID 5. The Compaq systems came standard with what Compaq called > > the IDA (Intelligent Drive Array). It was IDE based but did not use > > standard IDE drives. I think it could do RAID 0, 1, and 3 (or the > > equivalents there of). Compaq even had a few iterations of the > > controller and cached ones. Interestingly the Systempro XL had a > > SCSI 2 controller on the MB mainly used for the tape dive or CD > > while the base config came with an IDA 2 controller and could have > > up to eight drives. In addition you could install extra IDA > > controllers for even more drives or to drive external boxes. Or you > > could upgrade to a SCSI array - which is what I have running in my > > Systempro XL. > > > > > > > > >> > > >> What OS, just out of interest? > > > > > > Target OS was WinNT 3.1 initially and then 4.0. 2K was also > > supported but the machine really was not meant for 2k. You could > > also run OS/2, Novell Netware, Compaq DOS, and supposedly there was > > even a version of MS LanMan (the full server OS not the client) for > > the Systempro that allowed SMP. > > > > > > -Ali > > > > > > >
