Help please for a 3b2 neophyte...

[Philip A. Gross]

morris at jade.jpl.nasa.gov (Mike Morris) writes:

>I have a chance to pick up a 3b2-300 with a very dead hard disk drive for
>very little money.  It's been dead for over a year.  I've seen it with
>the cover off, and as I remember it has 4 serial ports on a card
>in the card cage, and blank plates over two slots.  The console
>plugs into a port on the back.
>Does anybody supply aftermarket cards (memory or otherwise) for this machine?

Most of the cards for the 3B2 can only be obtained from AT&T.  But one company
that I do know of, Congruent Technologies, can supply you with their own
memory boards for the 3B2.

>The disk is (was, really) a full-height 5.25" CDC Wren.  Knowing a little
>about how AT&T designed hardware, I'm wondering if this is a standard 
>ST-506 interface, or do I need to look for a specific flavor of hard drive?

The older models of 3B2's do use the ST-506 interface, however, if you don't
get the drive from AT&T or from some other source where the drive is
specifically formatted for the 3B2, then you need to obtain the 
"3B2 Computer Maintanence Reference" manual which contains a software package
called idtools which can be used to perform the low-level format of the
hard drive.  This manual is also handy for hardware diagnostics and other
hardware level maintanence.

>Also, if my source can't turn up the docs/floppies, how available
>is the needed software?  Also a AT&T "DMD" terminal will come with it.  I
>understand that it is a "semi-smart" terminal, but orphaned...

AT&T still sells it.  We can certainly sell it to you if you do need it.

>My environment/planned use for this system will be polled mail & news
>(I'll do the polling), a semi-public "BBS" environment for a ham radio 
>club, a little C language development, etc.  i.e. a home unix system.
>Is there a pd/shareware/cheap BBS for it?  How about a starlan card for it?
>If I can turn a starlan card for my XT will they talk?  Can the 3b2 be a
>file server & a print server?

In regards to StarLAN, yes on all counts.  However, you are getting into
some money.

While the 3B2 is a fairly reliable system, it only runs at 10MHz and the 
3B2/300 in particular is a DOG (by this, I mean SLOW).  I personally 
would suggest saving your money and getting a 386 box running AT&T 
Un*x System V 3.2.2.

We used to use a 3B2/310 as a gateway into Internet and Usenet and for
processing news.  This system was SLOW, we had to have our feeds restricted
because the system could not keep up with the information if we received
a full feed.  We have since upgraded it to a 3B2/400 w/ 4MB of RAM and
have tuned the kernel and it is still SLOW.

Hope this suffices.

===============================================================================
Philip A. Gross       The Computer Solution Co., Inc.       Voice: 804-794-3491
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTERNET:	pag at tcsc3b2.tcsc.com
USENET:		...!tcsc3b2!pag
UUCP:		tcsc3b2!pag	(804)794-1514
ATTMAIL:	attmail!tcsc3b2!pag
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        The opinions expressed here are strictly mine and nobody elses.
        << I haven't heard what I have to say about that yet. >> :-)
-- 
===============================================================================
Philip A. Gross       The Computer Solution Co., Inc.       Voice: 804-794-3491
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTERNET:	pag at tcsc3b2.tcsc.com