tarsa@decvax.dec.com (Greg Tarsa) (05/25/90)
My request for information about the 3/60 yielded a number of reponses,
which are summarized below. The questions arose because we came into
possession of a bare 3/60 CPU board and weren't sure how to make it a
"real computer".
1) Can a 3/60 board be put into a 3/50 cabinet?
The consensus is 'Yes', except that the cabinet power supply must supply
-5V to the connector. Non-dimpled bases are known to supply this voltage.
Dimpled bases have to be considered on a case by case basis.
2) Can a 3/50 mono monitor be used with a 3/60?
If the 3/60 is *not* configured for the high resolution monitor (a jumper
on the CPU board), then a 3/50 monitor will work fine on a 3/60.
Apparently the Sun upgrade on 3/50's offered a while back took advantage
of this.
3) Can a 3/60 ID prom be used in a 3/60?
Mixed reviews on this. The consensus was that it *might* work, but that
the type of the CPU is encoded in the Prom so that the results would be a
machine confused about its identity. One respondent indicated that the
machine would run without an ID prom at all. As it turns out, our CPU
board is not a replacement board and has an ID prom so we will not have to
do any experiments in this area.
4) Can a 3/60 or 3/50 board be put into a 3/160 cabinet?
Apparently this can be done. One respondent reported having as many as
three 3/50 boards in a single 12 slot backplane. The backplane apparently
cannot, contain a color board or SCSI controller *and* a 3/60 at the same
time as the 3/60 appears to poll the bus for them and confuses the 3/160
when it does so.
5) There is a "high res" jumper on the board. Does that mean that the
3/60 can be configured to use a high resolution mono monitor?
The 3/60 can be configured to use the same high resolution mono monitor as
the x/280 (1600*2000) by setting this jumper. If using a regular
resolution monitor be sure that it is *not* set as you stand a good chance
of burning out your flyback transformer.
6a) What kind of SIMMS are known to work in a 3/60?
100ns or faster 1Meg x 9 SIMMS will work. The 80ns SIMMS have the added
advantage that they can be used in 4/110's if you upgrade in that
direction.
6b) Anyone have a favorite source for inexpensive SIMMS?
A number of sources were mentioned. The cheapest were AnsDATAco at $71/M
and Solflower at $74/M for 80ns memories.
Thanks to everyone who responded, including Al Kossow, John Shriver,
Kathryn Fielding, Don Sharp and b2wild@ucsdb.ucsc.edu
Greg
tarsa@elijah.mv.com
{decuac,decvax}!elijah!tarsa