Simulated disk drive for RT-11?

[Jerome H. Fine]

 >Ethan Dicks wrote:

>>On 6/6/05, Kevin Handy <kth at srv.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>You could make one like DEC used to: Take an 8-slot backplane, and
>>fill in four of the slots with epoxy. You now have a 4 slot backplane.
>>    
>>
>Ahhhhgggg!  Ever seen that with a BA123?  Makes you cry... DEC didn't
>want their graphical workstations being converted to departmental
>server use, so they plugged up the extra holes in the backplane to
>prevent expansion.  For a while, one could order a virgin backplane
>from spares, but they eventually caught on (then they stopped hosing
>workstation customers so much ;-)
>
>Fortunately, I've only ever seen it at a DECUS (DEC-owned demo
>machines); none of the machines I've worked with or personally owned
>were broken this way.
>
Jerome Fine replies:

In the interest of proving that it was done (I
suppose that this is NOT proof that DEC did the
foul deed), I saved one of those backplanes from
an old BA23 box.  As a matter of record, only the
last 3 slots have epoxy.  If anyone wants the proof,
I will save it for you since it is about time to
toss it in the trash where it belongs.  By the way,
as Antonio states below, this backplane is an 8 * 4
slot from a BA23!!!!!!!!  Maybe Ethan's finger slipped
and added an extra "1" after the "BA"?????????????
I can't see that DEC would have converted a BA123,
but I guess that DEC could have done anything at that.

>Antonio Carlini wrote:

 >This was the (thankfully) short-lived VAXstation II/RC. The
 >one I saw came in a BA23, not a BA123. There were companies
 >around that would (allegedly) remove the epoxy (or whatever
 >it was they used) and hence restore full functionality.

Just so I could say I tried, I once spent a few
hours attempting to remove the epoxy - not a cost
effective use of my time.  I suspect that these
companies were more likely to have either purchased
a replacement backplane or found a damaged BA23
with a good backplane and removed the good backplane.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
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