3B2/400 - Help!!!

[Greg A. Woods]

I'm sure you'll get lots of answers.... :-)

In article <1990Sep12.113334.22017 at actrix.co.nz> clear at 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