Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!aplcen!jhunix!ereiamjh
From: ereiamjh@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Tom B O'toole)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: Unibus Adapter for 6410?
Keywords: VAX-BI, Unibus, Plotters
Message-ID: <3902@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>
Date: 9 Jan 90 15:41:55 GMT
References: <894@soleil.UUCP>
Reply-To: ereiamjh@jhunix.UUCP (Tom B O'toole)
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University - HCF
Lines: 22

In article <894@soleil.UUCP> eam@soleil.UUCP (Ed A. Mills) writes:
>My DEC Rep sugggested I buy another VAX as a plot server.  PLEEESEEE!  There
>must be a better way!?
If the versatec can only be connected via unibus, and you really need it, then
I think your DEC rep is right. The unibus adapter will set you back a lot,
even if you have the slots on the BI to add the adapter, and buy a cheap
unibus backplane and cabinet from a used dealer.  If you need to expand your 
BI, then you are really getting into big money. Unfortunately the unibus
adapter works best on a dedicated BI, and having one on a BI being shared with
a lot of other I/O can hurt the other devices performance. If you check with
the used dealers, I bet you will find that you can get a complete vax 730
system for under 2K. Then you can place the device on the 730 and run async
decnet between the two machines (or spring for an ethernet controller for
better performance). I agree that this is kind of messy, but it is a last
resort if you really need this particular (unibus only) plotter. And it is
still a lot cheaper than getting into the unibus adapter hassle if this is
the only piece of unibus equipment you need on the system.
-- 
Tom O'Toole - ecf_stbo@jhuvms.bitnet     "Internet is the wide area network
JHUVMS system programmer       protocol packaged with TCP/IP that unix systems
Homewood Computing Facilities  rely on to communicate remotely with each other"
Johns Hopkins University, Balto. Md. 21218                   -Digital Review