James,
   
   I don't know much about VAX 8200 series, but I can answer at least some
of your questions.
   You wrote:
> [...] and 3 RA82 (size?????)
   I'm quite familiar with RA82s. They are 623 MB formatted each, so you
have a lot of disk space.
   You wrote:
> These have no Diskid's [...]
   What do you mean by "Diskid's"? The unit plugs? If desperate, you may be
able to make them. The way they work is simple. They have plastic tabs that
may be cut off. Each tab corresponds to a bit in the unit # (which
corresponds to which is documented in the manual, which I happen to have).
Leaving the tab in place makes the corresponding bit 0 and cutting it off
makes it 1. Originally all tabs are in place and the drive is set to unit
0. Apparently when you put the unit plug in, the tabs push on some buttons
or switches which then short the right circuits. If you can't get real unit
plugs, you can try to stick in matches instead of the tabs, or open up the
drive, see what circuits are shorted when the unit plug is inserted and
short them in some other way.
   What I don't quite understand is why do they use unit plugs in the first
place. SDI uses purely radial connections for multiple drives, and each
drive connects to a different port on the controller. On all machines with
RAxx disks that I have seen (only two really :-)), there was a perfect
match between the number of the port on the controller and the number on
the unit plug on the drive. Does anyone have a clue as to what's going on?
   As for documentation, I have EK-0RA81-OM, the user's manual for RA81.
Yes, that's for RA81, not RA82. RA81 is an older model, it holds only 450
MB formatted. The two drives are very similar. The difference in capacity
is probably due to a different number of platters or a different recording
density. The mechanics (the HDA and the spindle motor) look identical, at
least in external appearance. The logic boards look quite different,
though. As I have said before, the manual I have for RA81 is a user's
manual, so it's not as good as a technical manual, but half a pie is better
than none. It describes the procedure for rack-mounting the drive in the
cabinet (I have never thought it's that complicated), programming the unit
plug, and reading fault codes (here reading doesn't mean fully
understanding, the latter requires the technical manual). If you are
interested in something particular from that manual, I can Xerox that part
and send it to you. I can't easily Xerox the whole manual, though, since
it's a bound booklet. However, I have recently managed to do the
impossible: convince our local DEC field service office to help me out. One
of their guys will soon bring me a stack of docs that I'm looking for.
Among them there is a technical manual for RA81 and both manuals for RA82.
If those will be on plain paper (which is most likely, since the DEC guy
probably won't find the original booklets and will instead pull the
electronic docs out of their system and print them out), I will be able to
Xerox the whole thing simply by loading it into the automatic document
feeder of our Xerox machine.
   One more caveat. These drives seem to be quite unreliable (I have one
RA81 and one RA82, and both fault when I try to spin them up. Fixing them
is what I have asked the DEC guy for the docs for.) So before you start
thinking about what you are going to fill your vast disk space with, check
whether the drives actually work. You don't need to have the VAX itself
working for this test, just power up each drive and see if it spins up
without faulting and comes up ready. It's best to do this test without
connecting the drive to the VAX, but the interface enable button on the
drive should be pushed in, or the ready light won't go on even if the drive
is ready. Another caveat. When reading the front panel indicators, remember
than they are not LEDs but small light bulbs, and they do burn out. I had
to check/replace them on both of my drives before I could read the actual
fault codes.
   You wrote:
> If someone could tell me
> more about the CPU box and the 15 pin cable conntor on the back
> that would also be great....
   Dave McGuire <mcguire@neurotica.com> responded:
> The db15 on the back is AUI ethernet.
   If it is, there should be two of them, one for each network interface,
and they should be on the back of the UNIBUS box, since that's where the
network cards are.
   Dave McGuire <mcguire@neurotica.com> wrote:
> > 3        4        T1018        C1
>
>   "BI adapter data transfer module"...not sure exactly what this is.
   and then:
> Incidentally, I don't see an
> SDI disk controller in there anywhere...weird...
   Well, if the VAX works, it must have either a KDB50 on the BI or a UDA50
on the UNIBUS (the latter seems unlikely to me, although I don't know
anything about the architecture of VAX 82xx, common sense suggests to me
that if BI is its native bus and UNIBUS is not, the disk controller should
be on the BI). Maybe that "BI adapter data transfer module" is a KDB50? Or
it may just be the case that the same kids who used the unit plugs as goal
posts for hockey used the KDB50 as a cover for a frying pan :-( (If this is
indeed the case, those kids should be spanked until they can't stand.)
   Dave McGuire <mcguire@neurotica.com> wrote:
> > 9        10      T1008BC    A1    memory size??
> > 10    11        T1008BC    A1    memory size??
> > 11    12        T1008BC    A1    memory size??
> > 12    13        T1008BC    A1    memory size??
>
>   MS820-A 2mb ECC memory...I believe this is the smallest BI memory
> board made. :-(
   This looks really strange. A machine with 3 RA82s, two network
connections, a lot of serial ports, and CI VAXcluster hardware is a very
high-end configuration. 8 MB is just ridiculously small for such a
configuration. If this indeed the case, and if you decide to use this
machine, you'll have to spend some $$$ on memory.
   And you have said there is an RX50 in the CPU box? Then it's probably
for the console. If it were for the VAX itself, there would have to a
controller for it on some bus, and the drive would have to be either in the
same box as the controller or external.
   
   Sincerely,
   Michael Sokolov
   Phone: 440-449-0299
   ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46@po.cwru.edu