>
>I bought a used DECstation 3100 a month or so ago, and I've been
>having fun with NetBSD-pmax on it.  I just had a few moderately 
>stupid DECstation and pmax questions:
>
>* Where can I get DEC-specific hardware cheaply?  I'd really
>  love to be able to hook up something to the serial ports.
>  It'd be mighty handy to have another disk mounting bracket for
>  a 3-1/2 inch drive, etc.
>
There are a number of companies that specialise in re-selling older
DEC equipment. I have been given recommendations via DEC-direct --
they are quite helpful in finding others who sell what you are looking
for -- especially if DEC no longer sells it.

On the subject of those mounting brackets: 
I spent about a day getting extracting the necessary information out
of DEC. I did (eventually) manage to get a part number out of them
which they could then use to tell me categorically that they no longer
sell them. [As a clue, the way we found out the part number was to
find the part number of the disk drives -- which were available from a
catalogue from about 1991 which is about the last catalogue the 3100s
appeared in.] Armed with a part number I then went on to another
company recommended by DEC, however they did no have the brackets
either.

I have reluctantly concluded that the brackets aren't available. What I
ended up doing instead was buying a 5 1/4 to 3 1/2 conversion bracket
kit and mounting that on the base plate. ($10 or so). All that was
required was drilling four holes through the plate -- I left the
existing bolt posts in place. The only slight problem is resonance,
and I would recommend using rubber washers or something similar to
prevent the whole set up from amplifying the "scratching sounds" of
the drive heads. Possibly I also have a noisier than normal. Also the
base plate is made of surprisingly hard steel -- use a sharp drill
bit! Be careful to deburr the holes too --- steel fillings falling
onto the motherboard is not a good idea!


>* I hate to ask this, but is there a 1.2 X server binary floating
>  around out there somewhere.  I swear I'll get around to building
>  it Real Soon Now, but it'd be really nice to have the server
>  running on the box right now.


I've heard that some work is being done on this [X11R6], though it
would be nice if more information was posted on the mailing list. Once
there is an X server, the machines I'd like to install NetBSD/pmax on
will become very useful, in the meantime they are just sitting around
:(.

It seems that in this age of GUI, a machine without X is next to
useless to many people...

Craig
    __o
  _ \<,_       C.A. Marby    marby@lhasa.harvard.edu 
 (_)/ (_)
~~~~~~~~~~
Well, I don't know where they come from but they sure do come,
I hope they comin' for me!
And I don't know how they do it but they sure do it good,
I hope they doin' it for free!
They give me cat scratch fever... cat scratch fever!
First time that I got it I was just ten years old,
Got it from the kitty next door...
I went to see the doctor and he gave me the cure,
I think I got it some more!
Got a bad scratch fever...
		-- Ted Nugent, "Cat Scratch Fever"