Chromatics CX-2000 System

[NeXT]

I've been keeping an eye on this machine for over a decade and finally the chance came where I could get my hands on it.

I got full board photos too! o:

This machine has no SCSI connections. Instead the system either bootstrapped over the network, or this very large battery backed SRAM module.

Okay, so what else do I know:

-The CX series machines are Unix-based machines running on a VME bus. The version of Unix it ran is unknown.
-It is unknown if the resident Unix is for middlemanning the graphics for a host machine via cabling and cards I do not have or if you simply attached a serial terminal and worked from there.
-This is a rackmount model. There was a tower standing workstation model, as pictured here --> https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/intergraph-ws-6000.1237464/post-1242695
-I have the matching model monitor. Three or four of them actually. The model of the machine and the monitor is the same. The serial numbers are suspiciously sequential.
-Bitsavers has no documentation for the CX Series
-Bitsavers has no software for the CX series

This machine is missing the top cover, a bunch of screws and has a broken fuse holder. I cannot tell for sure if any boards are actually missing or if there was no slot fillers ever in this machine. Otherwise it feels like the rest of the hardware is all there and its clean. I have taken far higher resolution photos but they add up to 150mb of images and the raw files are another 850mb.

 

[Caluser2000]

Wow! What a beast of a system. It'll be interesting to find out more about them.

 

[Agent Orange]

What are the power requirements?

 

[NeXT]

The line input is currently set for 120v AC however can be set to 120 or 240v, then the weird part.
@sorrow 's machine says 50-60hz but my machine says it's happy with anything between 50 and 400hz.
I have very little information about the history of this machine or the monitors I got with it other than an unconfirmed report it came out of "a nuclear submarine" which as crazy as that sounds would explain the 400hz line frequency (or it came out of an aircraft), everything being rackmount, the CRT's being supported by rubber shock mounts and the CPU and its power supplies also sitting on shock mounts.
This wouldn't be completely out of the ordinary later on as Barco bought Chromatics at the end of the 80's and continued to sell ruggedized CRT's to military and aviation contracts.

 

[Agent Orange]

Some USN aircraft that I worked on used 3 phase 115 VAC @ 400 Hz. Nice find.

 

[NeXT]

And now finally, the monitors.
They're big. They are heavy, they are a lot of metal (mostly aluminum) and like the CPU it supports 120v 50-400hz power. the tube is supported on rubber shock mounts internally.
There were three monitors. The serials are not sequential, but they are in the neighborhood: 21-9001002, 21-9001004 and 21-9001005
It's interesting to note that the model of the monitor is the same as the computer but it has a different part number: 121005.

 

[NeXT]

I do see that images of this machine appeared on Bitsavers, albeit size reduced.
Al if you have any interest in considerably higher resolution images which you can identify the writing on the IC's with I'm more than happy to send those to you.
I do also see a tar file appeared in the same directory containing a considerable amount of uncompiled code. Interestingly the makefile alludes that it was setup to build on a Sun Microsystems platform 68K machine.
This actually turned up a google result.

Apricot Sigmex Ltd, the Horsham, West Sussex result of Apricot’s acquisition of command and control specialists Sigmex International Plc back in May of last year, has launched a range of real time graphics workstations and subsystems at the top end of its range of systems. The AS 8000 graphics workstation series and AS 6700 subsystem are re-badged and ruggedised versions of Tucker, Georgia based Chromatics Inc’ Baja and Le Mans CX2000 workstations. The AS 6700 is the two-dimensional Baja graphics terminal subsystem, which uses a 68020 running at 16MHz with 12 MIPS performance. The pipelining of processors is claimed to deliver one million two dimensional GKS vectors. It has an optional PHIGS-like three-dimensional extension, and supports both Unix and VAX/VMS environments. Priced at UKP20,000 the AS 6700 is available now. The AS 8500 version of the Le Mans workstation, incorporating the AS 6700 subsystem, has a Sun-3/E workstation processor – a 20MHz version of the 68020 with Sun’s memory management unit – 4Mb memory expandable to 16Mb, and 300Mb hard disk. It runs Unix and supports all Sun software and tools including Network File System. The AS 8700 is built upon a 68030 CPU set, again running Unix and incorporating the AS 6700 subsystem. No prices are given for the workstations. Apricot Sigmex says it has now completed the first stage of a contract to supply 12 real time data management and display subsystems for the Ministry of Defence’s Skynet 4 military satellite communications programme, providing the user interface for Skynet’s Enhanced Spacecraft Operations Facility, controlling the operation of defence satellites. And French sister firm Apricot Sigmex SA is installing a graphics command and control subsystem at Electricite de France’s main regional control centre.

Direct link to the page, which wants you to accept cookies.

So several things to take in here:
-There was an Apricot-Sigmex merger in 1988. I was entirely not aware that this happened but neat, there's Apricot again!
-The CX-2000 was rebadged as the AS 8000 and AS 6700
-The basis of the AS 8500 machine is a Sun-3/E VME system which as we could see in the photos is not a board I have. (also I think that board would be way too deep for this chassis)
-The AS 8700 seemingly is the same, but a 68030.
-Random mention of Skynet. What the heck is this???

 

[tradde]

That is an impressive beast. Hope you get it fully working. Look forward to the story on it.