[rescue] Rescued VAX 4500 question

[Scott Newell]

>  I don't *need* to say it, Josh.  There are hundreds of them in
>everyday use even today, some of which haven't gone down or been
>rebooted in years.

Impressive.  The -8s I've had (limited) dealings with are not all that
reliable--core corruption and paper tape readers seem to be some of the
weak spots, along with the power supply.  Granted, these machines were in a
harsh environment (metal forming industry).

I've also had run-ins with LSI-11 boxes running those little Bridgeport CNC
milling machines.  Again, I can't say that I was impressed with the
reliability--lots of downtime in the summer when it gets hot.  On those, I
used to have to look for the main cpu board and memory cards.

Considering the age and working conditions, I'm still impressed that the
machines were running at all, even if they had had several boards replaced
over the years.

You know, I could probably score enough LSI-11 bits & pieces to build up a
working system...but what would you use such a thing for?  Are there still
assemblers and compilers floating around?


newell