[rescue] VAX 11/750s - Re: Linux wet paint, was Re: Spark10 CPU question (must fix - SPARC damnit :-) )

[J]

Another hobby of mine is vintage high end audio, and while power supplies in stereos are not switching, the observations from John are validated in the audio world too. 

While I shouldn't need to say it to this group, especially since I don't contribute often, I'll mention this other mechanism of equipment degradation. With the machine not running, and using the low suction setting, and a soft (brush/bristle) PLASTIC attachment, vacuum your treasures annually. Dust insulates (e.g. keeps the heat from escaping). Any equipment with a fan really means it has a device to draw in even more dust and dirt. So also don't run your toy in the basement if your wood shop or metal shop is there too. 
Also, vacuum in the summer, when the air has more humidity, and you lessen any static risk. 



----- Original Message -----

From: "John Hudak" <jjhudak at gmail.com> 
To: "The Rescue List" <rescue at sunhelp.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2016 10:23:12 AM 
Subject: Re: [rescue] VAX 11/750s - Re: Linux wet paint, was Re: Spark10 CPU question (must fix - SPARC damnit :-) ) 

so, basic electronics: Electrolytic capacitors dry out/leak over time...and 
coming up on ~ 35 years, I'd say they are well past their design life. 
Back in the day, SMPs were brutal on capacitors - caps were not formulated 
to withstand the 30-60+KHZ pounding of of the design. Capacitor 
formulations over the last 15+ years have changed to better hold up when 
used in HF switching applications. 
Caps are specifically designed for SMP applications with low ESR. 
While you are at it, better replace all those carbon resistors as they 
degrade over time, but not nearly as much as the capacitors. 
I'd say your observations about the performance of 35-40 yo SMPs are a 
overly high on expectations. 
Also, for machines of that era, power conditioning (isolation transformers, 
etc.) were often speced/the norm for machine installations. As time went 
on, may installations 'cut corners' and used unconditioned power. I used 
to have data that showed stability POH on configurations with/wo power 
conditioning and IIRC, uptime increased 20%-40% - Yea, at this point it is 
anecdotal info, but it was well substantiated in industry pubs. 
J 


On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 11:18 PM, Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> wrote: 

> On 12/19/16 5:13 PM, John Hudak wrote: 
> 
> I find myself greatly amused at the idea of a VAX 11/750 booting from a 
>>> "modern" computer whose sole purpose is to emulate a tape drive. 
>>> 
>> Been doing that for years - booting my various VAXes and PDPs. emulates a 
>> TU58. Eventhough I have 3 working 
>> jTU58s, my lil windoz machine performs that job very well. 
>> And, if I need to speed things up, I run SIMH (with RT, RSX, VMS) from my 
>> RL02 images on my i7-4xxx. (When I get some time, I have unix v6 (from a 
>> real Bell Labs tape and V7BDS which I need to cobble together.) 
>> 
>> My lab used to have 4-5 VAX750s. Never had any issues with PS. the 11/34s 
>> were rock solid. The only DEC gear that didn't compare was 
>> 11/44....seemed 
>> to suffer a host of ailments - ,mostly memory boards dropping bits...IIRC, 
>> the flaky ones seemed to have NatSemi memory. Oh the fun times....My 
>> colleague across the hall used to take great pride in diagnosing the DEC 
>> machines before field circus showed up. - often made me wonder why we even 
>> had the svc agreement....but I digress... 
>> J 
>> 
> Anecdotes being data and all that, the 11/750 I have needed a lot of power 
> supply work. Off the top of my head there were two big ol' transistors, a 
> diode, and a fusible resistor that needed to be tracked down and replaced. 
> That was in addition to replacing a fair number of large capacitors that 
> were leaking goo. I'm not all that great at diagnosing switching supplies, 
> but I learned a little bit more getting this one going again. 
> 
> (Incidentally, it's now heating my basement and will be until the fan 
> noise starts annoying me again, if anyone wants an account, let me know...) 
> 
> And anecdotally, the National Semiconductor memory boards in mine have 
> been rock solid (knock on wood), and I had to swap out one DEC one :). But 
> then, I've only been running it for a few days at a time here and there. 
> The NatSemi boards have the advantage of having all the RAM chips in 
> sockets for easy repair, the manual even gives a guide for tracking down 
> bad chips based on the DEC diagnostic. 
> 
> Now I just need to fix the 4.3BSD-Quasijarus bootstrap to work properly 
> with the CMD SCSI controller I have. (Anyone out there an expert on 
> MSCP?) I like VMS well enough, but... 
> 
> - Josh 
> 
> _______________________________________________ 
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue 
_______________________________________________ 
rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue