Hi there.

Whilst wandering through the ports page (http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/), I
noticed a machine description that sounded eerily familiar -- the NCR Tower
32.  I have one of these boxes in my collection, and although it hasn't been
powered up for many years, as best I can recall, it was still in running
order (SVR3, yuck).  Whether or not the root password is something I can
recall would be an interesting question, though.

I guess the question is, can I help with a port?  I no longer have AT&T boot
tapes for the machine, so if it blows a disk, it's pretty much over without
an alternative OS.  This gives me something of a vested interest.

I can definitely contribute more info about the machine itself.  The machine
I have ran an accounting system for a timber merchant, but I've also worked
for a bank and maintained several of these systems in a running environment.
I don't have the machine easily to hand (it's in storage), so the following
is from memory.


+  There was an optional ethernet card.

Mine doesn't have it, but the other ones I've worked with did.  10base2
only, no idea about interface or controller.  Mine has a blanking plate
where the ethernet jack would be.


+  One disk.

Mine has only one disk, made by (I think) Seagate, in the 40MB range.  The
disk itself has an ST-506 interface (or perhaps some primitive early
variant), but it gets more complicated after that.  Read on.


+  Optional SCSI isn't quite correct.

To say the machine has "optional" SCSI isn't quite right.  The chassis I've
got has a hard drive with an ST-506 interface.  The drive is plugged into a
very large "card" either made by Adaptec or built primarily from their
components, whose job appears to be to convert the ST-506 interface into a
SCSI interface.  The board has ST-506 connectors at one end, and SCSI at the
other, and the SCSI disappears into the bowels of the NCR mainboard after
that.


+  Serial interfaces.

It has lots of serial ports for terminals.  I forget how many exactly, but
it was at least eight or more, with blanking plates covering more holes.
root logins in single user mode only came up on the first console port,
which is probably typical for systems of this vintage.  There might be some
hardware trickery that prevents the terminal ports from running faster than
9600 bps.  vt220 at 9600 was fine, wyse-85 at 14400 didn't want to play.


+  Integral UPS.

The chassis has a chamber inside the frame for a sealed lead acid cell,
which apparently drives an integrated UPS arrangement (or so I've been
told).  I have no idea what function this really serves, whether it
continues to run the machine, or if it triggers a runlevel change
straightaway and shuts down, or if it just keeps the main memory alive
awaiting mains power to come back, but it's neat all the same.  I've never
been game to try it, since the absence of an OS tape to reinstall it makes
the contents of the machine's filesystems too precious to risk mangling with
an unexpected shutdown.


+  Model designation.

I have a funny feeling that when NCR were absorbed into the Death Star, the
model designations for these systems were changed.  Of course, they were no
longer for sale, but there were plenty of them scattered about in the
banking industry on nice fat service contracts all the same.  For the
purposes of support, the machines were referred to as "3450"s, a much later
x86-based Unix box also made by NCR.  The Tower 32 was the oldest NCR
machine they'd still provide service for, so I think the renaming was simply
to make sure that support requests were handled by the same band of monkeys
dealing with the x86 'nix machines.


+  Slow, bah.

16MHz 68020, if I remember rightly.  It probably has brother and sister too,
in the form of a 68881 and a 68851, but it's been a long time since I've
seen the board, and there were some people who thought they could do MMUs
for 68ks better than Motorola did them.  Anyway, it's plenty fast enough for
a couple of users on 9600 terminals.


Anyway, that's about all I know.  Please let me know if it's worth dragging
the box out of storage to play with.  I'm happy to do anything that might
help with a port, short of shipping it anywhere -- it's hard enough to lift,
let alone ship, and I live in New Zealand (South Pacific).

If you know of anyone else with one of these machines, I'd like to talk to
them, too.

Regards, Rob.