Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!dali.cs.montana.edu!milton!ogicse!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!nosun!qiclab!onion!jeff From: jeff@onion.pdx.com (Jeff Beadles) Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc Subject: Re: Tektronix 4404? Message-ID: <1990Nov29.231909.5850@onion.pdx.com> Date: 29 Nov 90 23:19:09 GMT References: Lines: 59 In dd26+@andrew.cmu.edu (Douglas F. DeJulio) writes: >I was at a recent "garage sale" type hardware sale, and I picked up a >Tektronix 4404 workstation for parts. Can anyone tell me what I've >got? I know nothing about the system, and the CPU doesn't have a >power supply so I can't power it up and figure things out. They tell >me that this thing runs Unix. It has a 40 meg hard drive, and a nifty >little card that makes a 5" floppy appear to be a SCSI device. If >nothing else, I'd like to figure out how to use that card (it'd be >neat for my NeXT to read 5" DOS floppies). It also has a three button >mouse, and a very strange keyboard with some sort of 2-d pointing >device built into it (not quite a track ball, but similar). *** Note: I don't speak for Tektronix. For that matter, I don't speak for anyone except myself. Also, Beware -- Tektronix has bailed out of the workstation market, so don't expect any support from Tek on this. *** Well, the 4404 does NOT run Unix. It runs "Uniflex" a (sort-of) Unix clone. The keyboard is the same keyboard that is on several Tektronix graphics terminals (with 2 different keycaps). There was an upgrade available to upgrade this to a 4405+ (or 4315-type) box. It consisted of ripping all of the old boards out and installing new ones. :-) One nice thing that the 4404 has is a sharp monochrome display that runs Smalltalk. There's also a single RS232 port and parallel port. The "display" box contains the monitor (70hz, I think...?), the compute board, and the IO board. There can also be optional memory boards and a lan interface. The box with the hard disk is called a "MSU", or Mass Storage Unit. You're right -- The interface between the display unit and MSU is SCSI. There's also an Adaptec 4000A SCSI <=> ST506 adapter. The HD will work in a PC class machine also. I've known a few people that take the Adaptec board, HD, power supply, and case, and add a Atari host adapter and make an Atari HD out of it. Works fairly well for that also. There's room for 2 full-height hard drives. The funny pointing device is called a "joydisk". Think of it as the arrow's on a PC keyboard. If you want to go up, press the top, etc... I think that the mouse is a Logitech 3 button "buss" mouse. I don't have the details on it, but I might be able to dig them up... Also, the box has a fairly nifty 3 voice sound chip, plus a noise generator. The floppy does go thru a SCSI <=> Floppy converter. I know next to nothing about how this works, but I might be able to find out. Which power supply is missing? If it's the one in the MSU, then a "PC" type power supply should probably work... Everything in there (except the fan :-) runs off of either +12, or +5. Hope this helps a little. The 4404/4405's were last sold around 1987. -Jeff -- Jeff Beadles jeff@onion.pdx.com