clear@actrix.co.nz (Charlie Lear) (09/12/90)
I've just bought a second-hand 3B2/400 to run a public access Usenet site on. It has 4MB of RAM, two 72-meg drives, tape backup and eight serial ports in addition to the console and contty. The machine was put into storage after a company takeover and all the 720k floppies and DC600 tapes were all thrown into the "common pool" box. I've got around 20 original AT&T Sys V release 3.0 diskettes and another ten backups of the C compiler and software generation suite. Now we've spent the last week porting code for a BBS system from SCO-Xenix to the 3B2, and we're having severe hassles with some 3.0 libraries missing and some libraries being 2.0. Also we do not have the system core disks or a working key disk. Which libraries contain the directory functions? The 3.0 manuals list several directory functions but they aren't in any of the libraries. (Note: the libraries installed on the system are dated July 85 and our manuals are dated April 86.) The missing functions are opendir, readdir and so on. Is the processor in the 3B2/400 binary compatible with the 68010 or similar processors? Now the big plea: if we have a severe hardware problem, we've had it. With missing core disks and a possible NVR fault (I can't get it to go into firmware mode) it would be next to impossible to bring back the system after a crash. Is any site running similar 3B2/400 hardware able to make backup diskettes and possibly a 23MB tape of the OS? I doubt if anyone would consider this piracy, its disaster prevention! As I said, we've got around 20 original disks, and since the takeover nobody seems to know where the mission critical ones have gone. The consensus is they were taken from the "pool", reformatted and used on something else. Please email if you are able to help with diskettes, or if you just want to let us know you're available for a brain-picking session if we get stuck. There seems to be very few 3B2's in New Zealand, and I haven't heard of any other /400's of similar configuration, so obviously I'd be willing to pay for the media and shipping. As a final note, the 3B2 was taken for granted as a slow, clunky old workhorse where it last worked. It spent the last twelve months serving as a news machine and not much else. Having sat down with all the manuals and given it a thorough going-over, I have to say I'm really impressed. It might be old, and it might not be 33MHz, but its still a pretty well designed and built bit of hardware. TIA and regards Charlie Lear Sysadm and Sysop, The Cave BBS, Wellington, New Zealand Post: PO Box 12-175, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand Daytime Voice (GMT +12): +64 4 733382 Fax: +64 4 711877 Mail: clear@actrix.co.nz
woods@eci386.uucp (Greg A. Woods) (09/14/90)
I'm sure you'll get lots of answers.... :-) In article <1990Sep12.113334.22017@actrix.co.nz> clear@actrix.co.nz (Charlie Lear) writes: > I've just bought a second-hand 3B2/400 to run a public access Usenet > site on. It has 4MB of RAM, two 72-meg drives, tape backup and eight > serial ports in addition to the console and contty. I assume that's an EPORTS card, not two PORTS cards > I've got around 20 original AT&T Sys V release 3.0 diskettes and another > ten backups of the C compiler and software generation suite. You might try talking to your nearest AT&T rep. about an upgrade. Last I looked it was ~$1,500.00(CDN) for the O/S, and about the same again for the development system. :-( No doubt twice as much as you paid for the entire system! > Also we do not have the system core disks or a working key disk. It's quite easy to make another key disk. RTFM > Is the processor in the 3B2/400 binary compatible with the 68010 or > similar processors? Nope. The 3b2/400 has a WE32100 (that Western Electric), and friends. This chip set was designed specifically to run UNIX. Unfortunately it took a few years before they made it run *fast*. It is binary compatible, for the most part, with all of the WE32000 line, as well as with the 3b5, 3b15, and 3b20 mini's. > Is any site running similar 3B2/400 hardware able > to make backup diskettes and possibly a 23MB tape of the OS? I doubt if > anyone would consider this piracy, its disaster prevention! You would want a site running 3.0 to do this for you. As for a tape of the O/S, it can't be done, other than as a regular backup. You can't boot a CTC to the best of my knowledge. > It might be old, and it might not be 33MHz, but its still a > pretty well designed and built bit of hardware. Agreed. Mine was totalled by lightning 3 weeks ago, but I'm interested only in replacing it with another 3B2 of some sort. I doubt I'd keep a 386 even if it was given to me. The newer models, starting at the 500, and especially the 1000's, are really impressive. [Damn, I wish the insurance company would call today!] >[Re: libraries, etc....] AT&T System V Release 3.0 for the 3B2's probably shouldn't have been released. I'm not sure how solid it was, but it didn't seem to be up to snuff w.r.t. the SVID Issue 3. Certainly the STREAMS and RFS code barely worked. Release 3.1 (which I was running) is almost everything you could ask for. Release 3.2 has a few enhancements, including the fancier lp spooler. Most of the newer features are/were available as upgrades to 3.1 as well, such as SCSI support, the CPLU 4.2 compiler, etc. -- Greg A. Woods woods@{eci386,gate,robohack,ontmoh,tmsoft}.UUCP +1-416-443-1734 [h] +1-416-595-5425 [w] VE3-TCP Toronto, Ontario CANADA