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15552 discussions

by gregg.drwho8＠gmail.com

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 12:16 PM, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote: Also, always check whether the drive is full of NHS patient data or possibly one of the police authorities' sex offenders register. Hilarity will ensue. I think The Sun pays like up to ten grand for tips :) Sampsa On 5 Jul 2011, at 17:13, Mark Wickens wrote: On 05/07/11 17:08, Mark Benson wrote: On the subject if lacking any decent SCA drives, anyone got any *quiet* 36GB or 72GB SCAs lying around they could part with? I've kept a watch on eBay for new SCA drives for a while now, and put a low bid in every now and again. I find that drives in specific enclosures for storage arrays, servers, etc. are the best bet and for some reason people don't seem to realise the drive in the enclosure is the same as if bought separate. I stick to HP or Compaq drives and *always* check the drives are sealed and secured - I've had too many incidents buying 'new' drives that turned out to be far from it. Good luck! Mark. Hello! Don't forget those clowns at "News of the World". They need to do something specific to keep them from breaking into departed teenaged female mobiles. Now on the subject of drives, I need to find 34G type SCSI drives, of the kind that can be stuffed into an external storage box, and have big connectors on the end. Of course figuring out how to safely arrange for the data to be moved from the older drive to the replacement.... Now there's an idea. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

13 years, 4 months

SCA disks...

by sampsa＠mac.com

Also, always check whether the drive is full of NHS patient data or possibly one of the police authorities' sex offenders register. Hilarity will ensue. I think The Sun pays like up to ten grand for tips :) Sampsa On 5 Jul 2011, at 17:13, Mark Wickens wrote: On 05/07/11 17:08, Mark Benson wrote: On the subject if lacking any decent SCA drives, anyone got any *quiet* 36GB or 72GB SCAs lying around they could part with? I've kept a watch on eBay for new SCA drives for a while now, and put a low bid in every now and again. I find that drives in specific enclosures for storage arrays, servers, etc. are the best bet and for some reason people don't seem to realise the drive in the enclosure is the same as if bought separate. I stick to HP or Compaq drives and *always* check the drives are sealed and secured - I've had too many incidents buying 'new' drives that turned out to be far from it. Good luck! Mark.

13 years, 4 months

SCA disks...

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

On 05/07/11 17:08, Mark Benson wrote: On the subject if lacking any decent SCA drives, anyone got any *quiet* 36GB or 72GB SCAs lying around they could part with? I've kept a watch on eBay for new SCA drives for a while now, and put a low bid in every now and again. I find that drives in specific enclosures for storage arrays, servers, etc. are the best bet and for some reason people don't seem to realise the drive in the enclosure is the same as if bought separate. I stick to HP or Compaq drives and *always* check the drives are sealed and secured - I've had too many incidents buying 'new' drives that turned out to be far from it. Good luck! Mark.

13 years, 4 months

SCA disks...

by md.benson＠gmail.com

On the subject if lacking any decent SCA drives, anyone got any *quiet* 36GB or 72GB SCAs lying around they could part with? -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson

13 years, 4 months

So who's looking forward to all the cheap second-hand Itanium gear that will soon be flooding the market?

by md.benson＠gmail.com

On 5 Jul 2011, at 16:35, Sampsa Laine <sampsa at mac.com> wrote: Cool machine, 24 GB of RAM too, that's pretty chunky. RHESUS has about 8 GB I think. No PSUs - are those hard to come by? If you are in the UK/EU Chiltern IT Parts have 2 left. Search for A6874-69000 at: www.chilternitparts.com Got mine there and the one they sent me was very clean and works fine. -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson

13 years, 4 months

So who's looking forward to all the cheap second-hand Itanium gear that will soon be flooding the market?

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

On 05/07/11 16:45, Mark Benson wrote: On 5 Jul 2011, at 16:12, Mark Wickens<mark at wickensonline.co.uk> wrote: ZX6000 were primarily Windows server workstations - they didn't ever really fit a defined niche as far as I can tell. Not exclusively though. Mine ran HP-UX in it's former life. It used to be a CAD/CAM workstation for Honda F1 (according to it's asset tag) and the EFI boot menu still had the entry in for HP-UX. Yeah mine too, in fact the picture of the ZX600 showed it sat in what looked like a F1 workshop... I don't think my graphics card was ever supported under HP/UX, but I could be wrong... I bought mine about 4 years ago for GBP 500 which was as much as I was prepared to pay at the time. They are going now for around GBP 100 depending on the configuration. Mine cost me 125 with no PSU or disks but 24GB of RAM. I reckon the recyclers sold the PSUs on to the place I bought mine from (better profit that way I suspect) who charged another 70-odd. In all it cost 235 GBP which I didn't think was at all bad. It's in clean nick and runs very quietly. FWIW I couldn't find a comparable machine UK or USA for under 200 GBP - that excluded any rx2600s as they are way louder. Mine was maxed out with memory and came with drives, so I guess that's worth something. My only stumbling block is mine has a pair of battered old IBM SCA 18GB disks. I didn't have anything bigger I could stand being in the room with :) Luckily they still run OpenVMS, otherwise your options are very limited - various linux flavours sort of work, but I believe gentoo is the only one still currently being maintained. Debian Squeeze (6.0) runs on IA64 but it got a monk on with my ATi FireGL card and refused to work Xorg with it. There is always HP-UX 11i but finding that for Itanium is a major mission, or costs more than the machine. I know the hardware is not the greatest, but it's a shame it hasn't been better supported, given that it is a true 64 bit architecture. Thong is I can't see much wrong with it apart from being power hungry and running hot but hey when's that ever worried people who run DEC gear :D I like the EFI firmware although it's not on the same plateu as OpenFirmware on IBM and Sun gear, and I like that it's a pure 64-bit architecture without all the x86_64 shenanigans. Yeah, I don't turn my on enough because of the power consumption, but then having said that it makes a great heater in the attic during the winter... But then, what do I know... I just love anything that is different or esoteric - which firmly makes me *not* the man in the street. Are any of us on this list? ;) OK, fair enough... :) BTW I would imagine the latest processor runs substantially cooler given the reduction in fabrication size, and next years will be even better.

13 years, 4 months

So who's looking forward to all the cheap second-hand Itanium gear that will soon be flooding the market?

by sampsa＠mac.com

What, DECNET enthusiasts are not mainstream? I simply refuse to accept that. On 5 Jul 2011, at 16:45, Mark Benson wrote: But then, what do I know... I just love anything that is different or esoteric - which firmly makes me *not* the man in the street. Are any of us on this list? ;) -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson

13 years, 4 months

Haul of DEC gear

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

On 05/07/11 16:39, Gregg Levine wrote: On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Mark Wickens<mark at wickensonline.co.uk> wrote: On 05/07/11 16:28, Gregg Levine wrote: On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Johnny Billquist<bqt at softjar.se> wrote: On 07/05/11 17:04, Mark Wickens wrote: Met up with Colin Butcher of X-Delta last night in Manchester to obtain a BA356 and some 36GB SBBs - he also gave me a couple of boxes of SCSI cables and Option cards, including SCSI and fibre-channel cards, HVD->LVD converts, BA rack personality modules, BA power supplies some CPUs (ES40 I think). A box of DEC option catalogs, a load of DEC Technical Journals, some old DEC related technical documentation (including some really nice marketing material for VAXstations and VAXes). I will try and get some of the nicer documentation scanned. I have yet to sort through everything, may take a while, but if anyone has any specific requests I will take those on board once I've cataloged everything. He wants stuff to go to a good home, and I said I would oblige if possible for the bits I don't need or can't use. Regards, Mark. There wouldn't happen to be any video cables for a VAXstation 4000/90 in there? Johnny Hello! Or how about anything concerning a DEC Terminal Server Model 90L+? Plus those MMJ cables they use. I have a couple of 90L+ terminal servers kicking around somewhere... Hello! Okay. Are they wearing that difficult to find frame that the documentation mentions? And are they doing anything important where you are? We can discuss specifics later. They are sat in a box in the garage, I have quite a few actually - the difficult part is taking the time to determine which work and which don't (there are definitely some non-functional ones). I make my own power adapter for them, and use them singly. I now have two 90Ms that server all my needs when it comes to terminals and printers. Regards, Mark.

13 years, 4 months

So who's looking forward to all the cheap second-hand Itanium gear that will soon be flooding the market?

by md.benson＠gmail.com

One on at the moment for 149.99 - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-ZX6000-Workstation-A9664A-Dual-Itanium-2-CPUs-… Mine was out of that lot, and yeah it was 149 not 125GBP. Nice machines in good nick but no PSUs. I think 175-240 is currently the going price for a decent one with lots of RAM. -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson

13 years, 4 months

So who's looking forward to all the cheap second-hand Itanium gear that will soon be flooding the market?

by md.benson＠gmail.com

On 5 Jul 2011, at 16:12, Mark Wickens <mark at wickensonline.co.uk> wrote: ZX6000 were primarily Windows server workstations - they didn't ever really fit a defined niche as far as I can tell. Not exclusively though. Mine ran HP-UX in it's former life. It used to be a CAD/CAM workstation for Honda F1 (according to it's asset tag) and the EFI boot menu still had the entry in for HP-UX. I bought mine about 4 years ago for GBP 500 which was as much as I was prepared to pay at the time. They are going now for around GBP 100 depending on the configuration. Mine cost me 125 with no PSU or disks but 24GB of RAM. I reckon the recyclers sold the PSUs on to the place I bought mine from (better profit that way I suspect) who charged another 70-odd. In all it cost 235 GBP which I didn't think was at all bad. It's in clean nick and runs very quietly. FWIW I couldn't find a comparable machine UK or USA for under 200 GBP - that excluded any rx2600s as they are way louder. Mine was maxed out with memory and came with drives, so I guess that's worth something. My only stumbling block is mine has a pair of battered old IBM SCA 18GB disks. I didn't have anything bigger I could stand being in the room with :) Luckily they still run OpenVMS, otherwise your options are very limited - various linux flavours sort of work, but I believe gentoo is the only one still currently being maintained. Debian Squeeze (6.0) runs on IA64 but it got a monk on with my ATi FireGL card and refused to work Xorg with it. There is always HP-UX 11i but finding that for Itanium is a major mission, or costs more than the machine. I know the hardware is not the greatest, but it's a shame it hasn't been better supported, given that it is a true 64 bit architecture. Thong is I can't see much wrong with it apart from being power hungry and running hot but hey when's that ever worried people who run DEC gear :D I like the EFI firmware although it's not on the same plateu as OpenFirmware on IBM and Sun gear, and I like that it's a pure 64-bit architecture without all the x86_64 shenanigans. But then, what do I know... I just love anything that is different or esoteric - which firmly makes me *not* the man in the street. Are any of us on this list? ;) -- Mark Benson http://markbenson.org/blog http://twitter.com/MDBenson

13 years, 4 months

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