friedl@vsi.UUCP (Stephen J Friedl) (02/23/88)
Hi folks, hope I'm posting this in the right place. We
recently picked up a (very) used Momentum Unix box at an auction.
There is no marking on it to lead us to the manufacturer's city
-- we think they have bitten the dust. The machine has a 68000,
a pair of 80MB hard drives, a tape drive, and runs Unisoft Sys III.
One of the Momentum-provided backup scripts has Bob Nystrom's name
in it. We got this guy pretty cheap -- only $75.
Does anybody know anything about this machine? We bought
the machine for the hard drives but considering the machine seems
to work we will use it for a little printer spooler or something.
We are certainly not looking to spend a lot of money on this, but
a boot tape would be helpful in case our primary drive goes out.
Unisoft has not been real helpful and I thought I might try the
net.
Thanks,
Steve
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Stephen J. Friedl, KA8CMY uucp: {uunet, attmail}!vsi!friedl
V-Systems, Inc. CSNet: friedl%vsi.uucp@kent
39 Brookhollow Drive voice: (714) 545-6442
Santa Ana, CA 92705-5440 "A watched EPROM never burns..."russ@wpg.UUCP (Russell Lawrence) (05/12/88)
In article <4624@mcdchg.UUCP>, friedl@vsi.UUCP (Stephen J Friedl) writes: > > Hi folks, hope I'm posting this in the right place. We > recently picked up a (very) used Momentum Unix box at an auction. > There is no marking on it to lead us to the manufacturer's city > -- we think they have bitten the dust. The machine has a 68000, > a pair of 80MB hard drives, a tape drive, and runs Unisoft Sys III. > One of the Momentum-provided backup scripts has Bob Nystrom's name > in it. We got this guy pretty cheap -- only $75. > > Does anybody know anything about this machine? We bought > the machine for the hard drives but considering the machine seems > to work we will use it for a little printer spooler or something. Years ago I was looking for a GOOD but inexpensive unix machine and my search led me to Computhink (alias Momentum) in Sunnyvale, CA. The key people were Val Skalabrin (sales) and Sidney Plotkin (engineering). After several discussions, I gave them an order for a trial machine but when I got it in, I discovered a number of serious problems--- the biggest being cheap drives. The straw that broke the camels back was discovered after a quick glance through the libraries. It took about five seconds for it to dawn on me that the sales rep had been fibbing when he said they had a reconfigurable kernel --- (as though I wasn't going to notice when I got the trial machine in.) Although it was Saturday morning, I called them immediately and was put in touch with a "software engineer" who wanted to know what a "kernel" was; later they gave me another person who swore up and down that Bell licensing procedures did not permit ANY firm to sell reconfiguration rights. Anyway, the machine had come to us on a Saturday morning around 8:30 AM and, as I recall, we had it packed up and back at the airport by noon. I believe that the experience represented some kind of record as the shortest test period on record. I suspect you got a pretty good deal but NOT for the hard drives. I'm wondering if you could plug in new hard drives that would be compatible with the disk controller in the thing. As I recall, it was fast (but tough to service) thanks to Plotkin's bus. If you hear of any more like it, let me know. --- Russell Lawrence, WP Group, POB 306, Metairie, LA 70004 AT&T: +1 504 456 0001 COMPUSERVE: 72337,3261 UUCP: {philabs,hpda,nbires,amdahl,...}!uunet!wpg!russ