<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>I really appreciate helping me narrow down my search! I gave the local resale shop a ring and they had no idea what I meant by "Alpha", oh well. The search continues! Ebay is the only place I've found Alphas, but the prices are outrageous. <br><br>Sent from my iPad</div><div><br>On Jul 18, 2015, at 12:06 PM, Hans Vlems <<a href="mailto:hvlems@zonnet.nl">hvlems@zonnet.nl</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div> <div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hi Chris, plenty models are rack mountable. The problem may be lifting the heavy boxes...</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">My systems live in the attic and I only take systems that I can handle all by myself. </div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In terms of performance, and more importantly, power consumption, have a look at more modern machines: with EV6 cpu's. Like a ds10, ds20 or ds20e, a ds25. </div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Or a workstation : xp900, xp1000.</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Prices may vary from free (just lift it from the floor) to over $1000 on ebay. These guys are looking at commercial users that still operate old gear like this. I only paid for three Alpha's, the most expensive one a ds25 for €100, say $120.</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The rest was free.</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Good luck!</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hans</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="Http://home.zonnet.nl/hvlems">Http://home.zonnet.nl/hvlems</a></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div> <div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br style="display:initial"></div> <div style="font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Verzonden vanaf mijn BlackBerry 10-smartphone.</div> <table width="100%" style="background-color:white;border-spacing:0px;"> <tbody><tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(181, 196, 223); border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 3pt 0in 0in; font-family: Tahoma, 'BB Alpha Sans', 'Slate Pro'; font-size: 10pt;"> <div><b>Van: </b>Chris Kurowicki</div><div><b>Verzonden: </b>zaterdag 18 juli 2015 19:12</div><div><b>Aan: </b><a href="mailto:hecnet@Update.UU.SE">hecnet@Update.UU.SE</a></div><div><b>Beantwoorden: </b><a href="mailto:hecnet@Update.UU.SE">hecnet@Update.UU.SE</a></div><div><b>Onderwerp: </b>Re: [HECnet] Hello</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(186, 188, 209); border-top-width: 1pt; font-size: initial; text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><br><div id="_originalContent" style=""><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Thanks, Hans. I have considered and looked at the Alphas, that may be the way I go after I play with simh. There are models I can rack mount, which is great. </div><div><br>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Jul 17, 2015, at 11:59 PM, Hans Vlems <<a href="mailto:hvlems@zonnet.nl">hvlems@zonnet.nl</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div> <div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Good morning Chris,</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">welcome to this list. It's across the globe, I'm in the Netherlands. As others already suggested, the quickest way to get started is with a simulator.</div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">VMS has an active hobbyist program and HP issues licenses and operating system kits as well as compilers. VMS runs on three platforms and though I love the VAX if you're looking for real hardware go for a cheap Alpha. Even an rx2600 itanium is cheap these days. </span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">Why, well VAX hardware is showing its age in terms of performance and VMS was frozen at V7.3.</span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">Itanium and alpha run VMS V8.4 and that runs fast and offers reasonably current software to run on.</span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">You can run simh and emulate a VAX on alpha/vms too :-)</span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;"><br></span></div><div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; line-height: initial;">Hans</span></div> <div style="width: 100%; font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br style="display:initial"></div> <div style="font-size: initial; font-family: Calibri, 'Slate Pro', sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Verzonden vanaf mijn BlackBerry 10-smartphone.</div> <table width="100%" style="background-color:white;border-spacing:0px;"> <tbody><tr><td colspan="2" style="font-size: initial; text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(181, 196, 223); border-top-width: 1pt; padding: 3pt 0in 0in; font-family: Tahoma, 'BB Alpha Sans', 'Slate Pro'; font-size: 10pt;"> <div><b>Van: </b>Chris Kurowicki</div><div><b>Verzonden: </b>zaterdag 18 juli 2015 05:43</div><div><b>Aan: </b><a href="mailto:hecnet@Update.UU.SE">hecnet@Update.UU.SE</a></div><div><b>Beantwoorden: </b><a href="mailto:hecnet@Update.UU.SE">hecnet@Update.UU.SE</a></div><div><b>Onderwerp: </b>Re: [HECnet] Hello</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="border-style: solid none none; border-top-color: rgb(186, 188, 209); border-top-width: 1pt; font-size: initial; text-align: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><br><div id="_originalContent" style=""><div dir="ltr">I've read a bit about simh, the general opinion seems to be that that is the place to start.<div><br></div><div> I do have some space. Problem is I already have a decent setup of machines, it's on my blog, but I have an 18U enclosure with a few things mounted up, maybe 6U left over. I don't think that'll help with a miniVAX, though. I've considered a VAXstation, there was a 3100 on E-bay for $80 that looked promising. For now I'm getting my LCII going again ("new" hard drive the way. The darn thing failed immediately after I installed System 7.5.5 from a set of floppy's, go figure). I need to focus on one thing at a time, but the VAX world definitely has my interest. I have a microVAX handbook from '84 on the way to me from E-bay land to read over. Anyway, to answer your question, I'm in Portland, OR. Recent(ish) transplant from Michigan. </div><div><br></div><div>Oh, I didn't notice at first! Ian McLaughlin is the one who "sent me" here. Thanks!</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 7:18 PM, Dave McGuire <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mcguire@neurotica.com" target="_blank">mcguire@neurotica.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">On 07/17/2015 09:08 PM, Chris Kurowicki wrote:<br>
> Hi there. I'm new. No equipment yet. My father used a PDP-11 years<br>
> ago. I'm into retro computing, learning all I can about DEC and VAX.<br>
> I think this network you've created is awesome. So, hi! Any early<br>
> suggestions?<br>
<br>
</span> Welcome!<br>
<br>
First, get ahold of an emulator; I suggest simh. Next...do you have<br>
the space for actual hardware?<br>
<br>
Where are you located, if you don't mind my asking?<br>
<br>
I myself am cleaning up some rack wiring after repairing my PDP-11/34a<br>
system. I'll be doing a Phase III sysgen (RSX-11M) on it tonight.<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
-Dave<br>
<br>
--<br>
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ<br>
New Kensington, PA<br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div>Christopher G. Kurowicki</div>
<div>M.S. Information Assurance</div><div><a href="http://www.tauceti.org" target="_blank">www.tauceti.org</a></div><div><br></div></div></div></div>
</div>
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