[rescue] DEC 5000?

[Dave McGuire]

On December 13, Mike Katchabaw wrote:
> Recently, our campus computing center's MASPAR box went belly up.
> It's a shame, because it was a nice box with 2K 386 processors in it
> -- a nice beast in its day.  The power supply died, and the front end
> to talk with it was toasted.  Consequently, the box is being
> decomissioned and our group has the chance to take what's left, if we
> want it.  Apparently, getting the power supply fixed shouldn't be a
> problem, so it's a matter of finding a replacement front end.
> 
> Sadly, no one we can find knows a whole lot about the front end, other
> than it was a DEC 5000.  From what I can find, it's neither an Alpha
> nor a VAX, but rather some kind of MIPS RISC system.  Is that correct?
> 
> Apparently the backend would really like to have a DEC 5000 for its
> front end.  We have all of the software and tape backups necessary to
> get this running and feed jobs to the backend.  Would anyone know
> where we could find a DEC 5000 or parts for one?  (I haven't
> personally seen the toasted front end yet, so I'm not quite sure what
> died on it either.)

  First and foremost...GET the remains of the front-end system.  I've
not done much with maspars, but I think there's an interface card in
the front-end system that's made of unobtainium.

  The DEC 5000 (DECstation-5000) is a MIPS-based family of workstation.
There's the /100 and the /200 series, they use TurboChannel buses and
MIPS R3000 and R4000 processors.  These are pre-Alpha machines.

  I moved recently and gave most of my DECstation stuff to Linc
Fessenden, on this list.  Maybe he can help you with a new machine to
build out into a front-end processor.

  Definitely grab this hardware.  It has big balls.

     -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL