Digital (DEC) VAXstation 3100 M76

• Hostname: dilbert.nat.rhwyd.co.uk
• Memory: 16MB
• Storage: 2x RZ23, 1x RZ25, total 600MB

I am not a big fan of driving, but I drove 400+ mile round trip in order to pick up this machine and a few other bits and pieces. It originally had VMS installed across three RZ23 disks. I was interested in learning about VMS, but it seems that since I picked up the machine, obtaining a Hobbyist license requires you to be a member of some HP User Group, which is not free.

It's currently running NetBSD 5.0 nicely. If I didn't have to pay for electricity, I would try and do something fun with it, such as hosting my website.

There is one quite big issue with this machine: it crashes as soon as it gets even the slightest bit warm. While it was on exhibit at UoN Computer Science's birthday, I had a standing office fan pointing straight into the machine, which allowed it to run for some time without crashing, despite being in a very warm environment.

With this machine came a DEC VR290 monitor. It is huge and perhaps deserves a page of its own. Unfortunately I haven't had much use out of it. OpenBSD has the ability to render a text console to the monitor, but NetBSD lacks drivers completely! I would love to try and get X running on it one day.