Hi,

Dreadfully sorry for the following long description of my antique system
below, but I am totally lost. I rescued this beast from the dumpster and
would like to incorporate it into the motley group that makes up the
home lan.

On to the description:

The rack contains a 9144 tape drive (already got some good info on it)
in the top position. Below that, there are to 3000 series 37 units
piggybacked. I was surprised to find them securely fastened to one
another after removing them from the rack. The two units are connected
together via an HP-IP port on each, in slot 4 on both units. Only the
top unit has a keyed power switch, but will not turn on unless both
units are plugged in. Once the bottom unit is plugged in to AC, the
system turns on. Model numbers are 32449A for the top unit and 32450BH
for the bottom unit.

The cards:

Bottom cabinet, starting from the top slot, which I've arbitrarily
called (0):

(0) Board number 30243-60001, I think the part number is 829275. It has
an AUI-type connector (slide lock included) on the far left, which is
accessable in slot 5 of the rear panel. It also has a row of 15 LEDs on
the far right, labeled A-N and the last is labeled *. It says LAN near
the model number, I assume this is a LANIC card.

(1) Part number 723208. This has a 50-pin berg connector on the front,
next to the backplane connector. There's an HP-IB connector on the rear
left, accessable in slot 4 of the rear panel, and an extremely
high-density 99-pin sub-D type connector on the rear right, available
above two slots above the 6 ATP ports. It also has a RESTART switch
mounted on the center-rear edge of the card. This HP-IB connector is
what connects the bottom unit to the top unit.

(2) Part number 616122. This has a switch surface-mounted on the front
of the card, next to the backplane connector, and a Centronics-style
50-pin female connector on the rear right side of the card, which is
accessable below the above described 99-pin Sub-D and just above the 6
ATP port connectors. This is connected to part number 40290-60003
(identified by others as a terminal splitter) with 8 DB-25F's on it.

(3) empty

(4) Part number 663745. The contents of this board are almost identical
to (2). The difference is that this has a DB25F on the left rear,
acessable in slot 1 of the rear panel, and a 24-pin berg connector on
the right rear, which the 6 ATP port connectors on the rear panel plug
into.

Top cabinet, same reference scheme:

(0) Part Number 668691. I can figure out from the content that it's the
CPU board. It has a 3.9V AA lithium battery on the front and two berg
connectors on the top side of the left rear.

(1) Part number 668611, says PIC (peripheral interface card?). This has
an HP-IB connector on the rear left, accessable in slot 4 of the rear
panel. This connects this unit to the bottom unit.

(2) Part number 662908. Identified as 1MB RAM card.

(3) Part number 662902. Also identified on the board as 1MB RAM card.

(4) Part number 668702. Marked TIC (???). It looks identical to (4) on
the bottom unit.

I also rescued 2 7974 disk cabinets and a 2563A printer with it.


The questions:

What else do I need to get this beast to do *anything*?

What kind of terminal/display can I use with it? How/where do I connect
it? More to the immediate point, can I use a linux PC running Kermit to
run it?

Related to the previous question, do these machines have any type of rom
monitor? If so, can someone provide a quick overview of it's functions?

Can someone just give me a description of the system in general, what
the cards are and what this system configuration might run?

Are there *any* manuals/books/etc still available for this system? If
someone has manuals and wants to sell me copies, I'd be more than
willing to pay for your time and effort.


If you got this far, thanks a lot already for taking the time to read
it. I sure appreciate any help/advice you have to offer. Thanks already
to Frank McConnell for trying to help me out on the classiccmp mailing
list.


Aaron Finney