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
