Turning a VAX 11/750 into a workstation (Re: VMS for MicroVAX II/III (was Re: Value of a PDP/8?))

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Ethan Dicks wrote:
>> > I think a 11/750 makes a fine single-user VMS "workstation" ;-)
>>
>> Never trust a workstation that couldn't roll over you and smash you flat?
> 
> I almost had an 11/750 land on me, but I was able to coax it out of
> the side door of a Chevy Astro mini-Van (alone) without getting
> squished or pinched.  That was a fun experience.

I once (with the help of a bunch of other people) was attempting to 
unload a DECsystem 5810 (a VAX 6000-300, except with MIPS CPUs -- I got 
the machine from Dave McGuire the first time I met him, and I still have 
it) from a rental truck down the ramp and it started to tip off the side 
of the ramp towards me.  I wasn't standing at the time.  It landed on me 
as I was kneeling down.  I caught it.

Now it may seem that sounds implausibly superhuman, but I'd probably 
qualify it as thoroughly stupid.  You see, I held it up only for a split 
second.  If it had been another split second, it would have crushed me 
dead.  No more Sridhar.  The people helping me reacted quickly and got 
it tilted back up before my strength gave out, which, obviously, it was 
about to.

In any case, I felt *sore* the next day.  Especially my neck.

> Thinking about the whole "11/750 workstation" concept - I wonder if
> one could take a qbus mono framebuffer and hang it off of some flavor
> of Qniverter?  It'd be glacial compared to a real VAXstation II or
> VAXstation 2000, but presuming the framebuffer doesn't depend on
> anything peculiar to POST on a MicroVAX II, it'd be slick to see.  For
> "real" work on an 11/750, any flavor of DMA-capable Unibus comms
> interface (DEC DMF-32, Emulex CS21...) and an authentic
> ANSI-compatible dumb terminal (VT100, VT220...) is just fine (but back
> in the day, the "power users" had two terminals on their desk, along
> with a serial switch box to manage "multiple sessions" in hardware).

I once asked a question as to whether it would be possible to build a 
VAX 6000-based workstation by hanging a Qbus framebuffer from a Unibux 
slot hooked to a VAXBI bridge in a VAXBI slot in a secondary BI cage 
hooked to a VAX 6000 through an XMI->VAXBI bridge.  The consensus was 
that it probably wouldn't work.  8-)

I'm going to try anyway.  I just haven't had the time.

Peace...  Sridhar