[H-GEN] Wanted: parts and help to get Unix box working

[Martin Pool]

On Sat, 7 Mar 1998, Ian Lister wrote:

> >                                                         You may be in
> >luck.
> 
> "in luck" - does this imply that I wouldn't want to run AIX? I believe it
> already has a (licensed) copy of AIX installed.

Not necessarily: using AIX would probably be a pretty interesting
experience (no sarcasm intended), and I think it hasn't been represented
at a humbug meeting before. (Rob?)

You probably _are_ lucky it's already installed: I hear it's a bit hairy
to install it.

> [13W3 adapters]

(Adequately covered, I think)

> Do you know if I need to worry about "sync on green" if I try to connect it
> to a normal SVGA monitor? David Wood mentioned that it could be a 13W3
> connector, but from what I can find on the web the 13W3 has normal pins as
> well as the three mini-coax connectors.

> >RS6000 machines use MCA cards from MCA PS/2s.  You can probably canibalize
> 
> Does that mean there are different types of MCA card?

No, it means that there is only one type: this was quite an advance over
the previous situation of incompatible cards in each new generation of
machines.[0]

> >one for memory or ethernet cards, if you can find one.  Almost all of them
> >had VGA on the motherboard, so I think the only video cards were expensive
> >CAD displays: XGA and 8514/A.  (Not that there's anything wrong with
> >exotic cards, of course.)
> 
> My cards used to drive beautiful 19" monitors for CAD work. I was _very_
> close to picking a few up, until their true value was realised.

The cards are probably 8514/A's, which were one of the first accelerated
graphics cards for PC-class machines.  However, they're _not_
backward-compatible to VGA (which is what killed them commercially) so you
might have trouble running a different unix.

> HW router? Do you know how much they cost? (that was not a rhetorical
> question).

Don't ask me, somebody else pays for them. :-}

> I think they're probably too expensive for me.

> A SW router would
> be OK, but I don't have a TokenRing card and an Ethernet card in the same
> computer (the reason I am trying to get rid of those PCI and ISA cards I
> mentioned in my post is that I don't have a computer that takes them).

Ah, that's a problem.  I though putting a TR card in a {linux,bsd} box
would be the best option.

> So, apart from finding an MCA PS/2 and gutting it, do you know where to get
> MCA cards from? I guess advertising on local newsgroups would be the best
> way to get second hand ones.

You can probably buy them new from kensington.com.  Personally, I'd gut a
PS/2.

--
Martin Pool, Pharos

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