Meiko Computing Surface software.

[Andrew Back]

Hi Jules,

On Tue, 6 Mar 2007, Jules Richardson wrote:

> The website at http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/phw suggests he's still 
> there (and hasn't updated his photo since my time there :-) so it might be 
> worth giving him a prod to see if they have anything on backup still.

Thanks, I'll drop him an e-mail.

> Have you tried a board swap from an identical good drive in case the fault's 
> with the logic rather than heads / spindle / surfaces? Knowing Sun it's a 
> fairly common drive...

I did wonder about this but then worried about bad block maps and the 
likes. I may still have the drive somewhere back at my folks (along with 
an equally dormant Esprit Supernode II).

> I'm hoping to go and look at a CS1 in a few weeks and pick it up if it turns 
> out to be in reasonable-enough shape. This one has a Microvax as the host 
> (I'm not sure how common that is - all the installations I've heard about 
> have been either Sun or PC).

Pretty sure I've heard of Inmos uVAX hosts, but not Meiko. Although I 
guess there is no reason why an Inmos host couldn't be cabled up to boot a 
CS1 - the links must be the same. I'd be interested in hearing how it 
turns out and happy to help if I can with info (have some Meiko docs). 
Also possibly interested in spares if it turns out to be beyond hope.

Cheers,

Andrew