Gordon C. Zaft wrote:
> 

> *sounds* of VAX.  I'm thinking of the particular whine an 
> RD54 makes as it
> spins up, as well as the whooshing noises the RA8x make when 
> they spin up.

Or the *ka-thunk* sound when you power up one of the big cabinets, like
an 11/785 or 8600...

<Nostalgia>
I remember one place where I used to work. We had an 11/785 with a fully
loaded Unibus, including a HyperChannel link to an off-site Cray,
several plotter interfaces, large line printer interfaces etc. (BTW,
that link to the Cray was how come I learned to program. Cray Research
supplied some VMS software called "Cray Station", in order to use the
VAX as a front-end for the Cray (running COS). We had an on-site CDC
Cyber running NOS and I was given the task of writing a piece of
software we called "Cyber Station", to enable the lusers to use the VAX
as a front-end to the Cyber. But I digress...)

When we powered on the 11/785 we had to make sure that the switch for
the Unibus cabinet was off, otherwise the circuit breaker would pop due
to an amperage overload. After all the fans etc. had started in the main
CPU cabinet we could throw the switch and power up the Unibus.
*ka-thunk*, *hummmmm....*
</Nostalgia>

I miss those beasts, thank god I've got an 11/785 stashed away in a
safe, dry place...

Gunnar

--
Gunnar Helliesen   | Bergen IT Consult AS  | NetBSD/VAX on a uVAX II
Systems Consultant | Bergen, Norway        | '86 Jaguar Sovereign 4.2
gunnar@bitcon.no   | http://www.bitcon.no/ | '73 Mercedes 280 (240D)