[Info-vax] Assistance needed!! working RM05 drive and VAX needed for proje

[Rich Alderson]

Dave McGuire <mcguire at lssmuseum.org> writes:

> On 9/27/23 15:17, gah4 wrote:

>> Until a few years ago, the best place to find a running VAX was the Living
>> Computer Museum in Seattle.  (That is, a non-micro VAX.)

>> The museum is still there, but has been closed since early 2000.

>> I believe the VAX runs on emulated disk, though.

>    Most everything there was emulated, it seems.

We emulated two kinds of drives:

1.  Large Massbus drives (RP06 and RP07), because media for either type was
    unavaiable.  The last disk manufacturer in the US shipped us a batch of
    "RP06" packs which were unformattable, because they had changed the
    chemistry of the slurry.

2.  The CDC drives used by the Xerox Sigma 9, because we had learned our lesson
    by then.

>> Keeping old disk drives running is much harder than old CPUs.

>    It is, but we do it at LSSM.  It's not like it's impossible.

We kept RK05, RM02, RM03, and RL01 drives running for smaller DEC equipment, as
well as the drives on the Altos.  It's not impossible, but it wasn't our
primary raison d'etre...

NB:  I received training from a former DEC FE in how to install and tune heads
in an RP06--without the magic suitcase, just a torque wrench.  So don't tell me
what is and isn't doable.

-- 
Rich Alderson					  news at alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen