[Sunhelp] Ack! Need DECpaq UNIX box!

Bill Bradford mrbill at mrbill.net
Mon Aug 7 22:39:31 CDT 2000


Started the new job today, primary responsibility is Solaris administration,
but then after the complete and total loss of power to our datacenter[1],
I noticed a couple of the DEC UNIX boxes hadnt come up properly and were
sitting at the SRM prompt.  "Hey, these boxes didnt finish booting".

Later in the day...

"So, you got any experience with DEC UNIX?"

and I was foolish and admitted:

"Yeah, installed 4.0D on an Alphastation 4/166 and used it as my primary
 workstation once upon a time..."

That, my friends, was the beginning of my doom.  Now, in addition to the
Sun boxes (still my Primary Objective (tm)), they want me to be the backup
(secondary) sysadmin for our head guy on the DEC boxes because nobody else
has a clue when it comes to DEC UNIX / Tru64 / whatever its being called this
week.  I dont really mind (they're putting a NT box and a PWS450A, I think, in
my new cube tomorrow), but this creates another problem:

Now i need a small box for home to break things on before I break them at
the office.

So, anybody know where I can pick up a small, capable-of-running DU/Tru64 4.0x
-and-5.0 Alpha box, with 128mb of RAM and 24bit color?  Something like a 
3000/x00LX at the low end, or maybe an AlphaStation 4/233 or AlphaServer at
the high end... any suggestions or offers of sales greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Bill

[1] New girl in NOC/Ops center.  Someone went out of the datacener without
   card-swiping.  ALarm goes off.  Someone bangs on window to tell girl to just
   open/shut door again to turn alarm off.  Girl sees this, freaks, flips
   Protective Cover [2] and hits the Really Big Red Switch [3].

[2] Meant to prevent things like this from happening

[3] Not just the Big Red Switch [4].

[4] That one just turns off the power to the machines. [5].

[5] This one turned off power to EVERYTHING.  Ever seen a multi-multi-million-
    dollar carrier-grade datacenter TOTALLY QUIET?  Coworker said "woah, its
    eerie" and I said "its the impending sound of your doom..." [6] [7]

[6] Name that movie.

[7] Most often heard comment directed towards me today: "Hell of a first day,
    eh?"

-- 
+-------------------\ /-----------------+
| Bill Bradford      |  www.sunhelp.org |
| mrbill at mrbill.net  |   www.decvax.org |
| Austin, Texas USA  |    www.pdp11.org |
+-------------------/ \-----------------+





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