Need info on ISI systems

[Jim Lowe]

We have 2 ISI Q-bus systems.  They consist of:

	System 1				System 2
MDB Qbus box				MDB Qbus box
12 Mhz 68010				10 Mhz 68010
1 1/4 Meg Ram				1 1/4 Meg Ram
a DEC Synchronus board			DHV11
2 DHV11's				Emulex Sc03/Bx disk controller
Emulex Sc03/Bx disk controller		CDC 9715 (160Meg) disk
Qic II 1/4" streamming tape drive	Excelan Ethernet board
Excelan Ethernet board
Fujitsu Eagle (474 Meg) disk

Also, the EE/CS department here owns 7 or 8 of them.  So far neither of the
systems has ever crashed (execpt for power failure).  The first system we
has been up and running since January; the second one since June.  The
EE/CS department had problems with one of them.  After about a year of running
the power supply in the Qbus box died.  The rest of them have been running
continuously for about a year and a half.  In fact, over labor day weekend
the air conditioning in the machine room went out.  The temp rose to about
95 degrees.  The ISI's were the only thing still running!

The 4.2bsd port that ISI did makes them look just like a Vax.  The speed of
the 12 Mhz 68010 is about the same as our Vax 750.  I/O is a bit slower (because
of the Q-bus speed limitiation).  The real difference is the price!

I had a chance to try one of their VME based systems.  I was very pleased with
it.  It connected right up to our ethernet with no problem.  The system looked
very much like a Sun (Bitmap graphics, etc...).  It has an editor that is 
like MacPaint, an Icon editor, and other misc utilites.  I found it very
easy to use.
-- 
	- Jim
	ihnp4!uwmcsd1!james
or	uwmcsd1!james at wisc-rsch.arpa