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DEC units on ebay

hush said:
i didn't even know they made the vax11 that small! admittedly i never dug too deep into the model's history, i just kind of assumed they were all big bulky cabinet units :)
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Even smaller was the VAX-11/725. It was functionally a 730 and RC25 disk drive in a small deskside case. The packaging made it smaller than a 730 system in a normal rack with an RA drive. Since it was practically the same as a 730, you could slide an RB730 card into the slot reserved for it and control one RM and up to 3 RL02 drives. I had one, with an RM80 and two RL02s, way back when. I used it to host a VAXstation 100 workstation. It was a pretty nice setup back then.
 
leegleason said:
Even smaller was the VAX-11/725. It was functionally a 730 and RC25 disk drive in a small deskside case. The packaging made it smaller than a 730 system in a normal rack with an RA drive. Since it was practically the same as a 730, you could slide an RB730 card into the slot reserved for it and control one RM and up to 3 RL02 drives. I had one, with an RM80 and two RL02s, way back when. I used it to host a VAXstation 100 workstation. It was a pretty nice setup back then.
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My experience with the 11/725 was dismal. The CPU was about as fast as a PDP-11/53, but running VMS with a maximum of 3MB made it a lot slower. I found it quicker to develop code on my 11/73 (or my employer's 11/83) and port it to the VAX when the code was working than to actually develop on the 11/725. When I got my first MicroVAX-3100 that was a whole different story.
 
NF6X said:
It gets a bit larger once you add mass storage. A standard configuration was an RL02, VAX-11/730, and R80 in a short cabinet. That is what I have, plus a TU80 in a second short cabinet.
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The late, unlamented RB730 card - RL02s and an R80 (not an RM80 or an RA80, just an R80). Not exactly a speed demon, and backking up the R80 to RL02s was Not Fun.
 
Ah, right - I was running an R80, that had been converted from an RM80. The vendor said it was easy to convert - I presume the difference was an interface card inside the drive. The system wasn't exactly speedy, but in a time when almost no one had their own VAX, it was nice to have it at home. And the VAXstation 100 software did allow me to have several terminal sessions open at once. Anyway, I enjoy using the lower end DEC products - I do projects using DEC T11 chips and my main hardware VAX system is a MIcroVAX 1. One fun thing to do on the 725 was to display MON SYS on a terminal window, and move the mouse rapdily around, and watch the Interrupt stack time go way way up.
 
hush said:
beautiful! thank you for sharing :)

i hope this one goes to a forum member so we get to see what they do with it!
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If a forum member gets this, be advised that you can significantly speed up boot times by carefully ordering the boot files on the TU58, to avoid rewinds,
 
leegleason said:
If a forum member gets this, be advised that you can significantly speed up boot times by carefully ordering the boot files on the TU58, to avoid rewinds,
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And it can be even faster if you don’t rebuild the TU58 capstan and try to refurbish a TU58 cartridge, and instead use AK6DN’s tu58em emulator.

I think the TU58 drives are neat, but their media ages very poorly.
 
bobaboba said:
If you’re REALLY in need of a H960 rack (eBay U.K.). But it’s cheap enough and a few handy bits.
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I don't think it sold.
I was up for getting this but the seller said there was no access for a large van to collect. I didn't fancy having to dismantle it in order to shift it in pieces.
 
zippysticks said:
I don't think it sold.
I was up for getting this but the seller said there was no access for a large van to collect. I didn't fancy having to dismantle it in order to shift it in pieces.
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Not a big job to dismantle actually, just a few bolts, but a LOT more work to refurb. Maybe worth it if there’re a few slides in it (can’t make out).
 
It's all relative to scarcity I suppose. It took me years to find an H960 then I found a pair, two states over and 1000 miles away. I had them shipped over a month by a removalist doing a backload. I'd jump at the one listed but a bit too far away, I reckon I'd turn up with a caster dolly and trundle it down the road/footpath to an access point.
 
Before I did do a massive cleanup of my PDP collection, all my RSX11M RL02's were
imaged by a fried, the result being container files usable by simh. (xxxxxx.dsk).

I have 4.8 on 5 imaged RL02's and it 5 disks in total, including RMS 2.0.
disk 1 - rsxm70
disk 2 - exeprv
disk 3 - mcrsrc
disk 4 - prvbld
disk 5 - rms2.0

The R01 kit for 4.0 does contain 6 disks, the 6th being the RMS disk
disk 1 - rsxm32
disk 2 - exeprv
disk 3 - mcrsrc
disk 4 - rlutil
disk 5 - hlpdcl
disk 6 - rms20
 
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