Where to get a Vax or microvax

tony duell ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk
Mon Jun 29 14:35:32 CDT 2015


> 
> Well, ok, if your list was intended as a "first VAX" only list, then

That is what I believe the OP was asking for, 

> fair enough. I would not consider most of those machines as good first
> VAXen either. Although, the 6000 is actually not that hard, nor some of
> the small 8000-machines, such as the 8200.

The 6000 series are quite big cabinets and as a first VAX it's hard for me to 
see the great advantage over a microVAX or a VAXstation.

> The problem with lots of the more modern machines though, are that they
> essentially are fine if they work, but if they break, you'll have a hard
> time to fix them. That goes both for the 6000 series as well as all the
> pizza boxes.

My view is that there are only 2 VAXen series that I would want to run at home. For me.
That is machines where component-level investigation and repair are very possible, Those
series are the 11/780 (including the 11/782 and 11/785, of course) and the 11/730 (including 
11/725). As I don't have space for the former, I intend to run the latter. But my requirements and
interests are likely to be very different from other people's hence my initial comments.

Thing about the VAXstations is that there are quite a few about that can be raided for spares. There
is a printset for at least one of them on bitsavers, so I would guess finding a faulty IC is not going to 
be impossible. I refuse to actually suggst b***d-sw*pp**g but you know what I mean....

I have never seen a printset for a 6000, 7000, 8650, etc machine. Do they exist? I doubt it for the 
6000 series.

-tony


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