VAX 11/750 rescued, alas...

[J Blaser]

Rod Smallwood wrote:
> Hi
>   Fear not all is not lost. There's tons of modules around but not that
> many cabs. 
>   

Yes, you are absolutely correct!  The more I think about it, the more 
glad I am to have even this empty chassis.  Definitely harder to come by 
than the modules that are missing.

A few good souls have already stepped forward offering some help with 
the boards, so this revival might be less difficult than I anticipated 
at first.


> In the picture of the Qbus board it appears to be sitting on the module
> config diagram. 
> As it is pre printed and not filled in by hand its probably a standard
> system. 
> That will give you a list of the boards. 
>   

Yup, I went through that last night.  There is another label that was 
inside one of the front cover plates that does show a list of modules 
penciled in.  So I believe I now know what the original configuration of 
this system was.

I've come up with a minimum list of boards, and a wish-list of the 
boards that were originally included.  Looks like the the mass storage 
was hung off of a UDA50, and some tape devices on the SI 9700 board 
(which I still am completely ignorant of).

I have a couple of Fuji SuperEagles and an RA81, so I'll be on the 
lookout for SDI and SMD interfaces for the rebuild.  I just hope the 
Fujis and RA81 are functional when the time comes!

> Note of caution do not try to turn it on. The power supplies will need
> some work. You need to reform/replace any electrolytics.
>
>   

Roger that!  I'm a firm believer in a full chassis cleanup, capacitor 
reform, and separate PS checkout before every hitting the big switch on 
the front!  ;-)

Oh, yeah, that reminds me...I've got to locate the 'vending machine' 
power-switch key for this thing.  Anyone know if it is a fairly standard 
key?

> The case will clean up well and you can start off by getting the PSU's
> working and getting the list of modules together. Disk drives would have
> been in another rack I think.
>   

This looks like it'll be a more lengthy revival than any that I've done 
up until now, which have been mostly qbus PDPs and uVAXen.  A great 
winter project!

- Jared