Hello,

> Hello, I have a chance to buy a VAXstation VLC 4000.  I am taking a VAX
> Assembly course, and it would be nice to practice on something!  I also wanted
> an older machine to use as a unix server.  So I am wondering if it makes sense
> to use the VLC for this purpose?  The VLC unit that is forsale does not come
> with a monitor or keyboard, and I'm wondering if it is possible to use the
> machine through a dumb terminal.  I really have no room in my apartment for
> another monitor!  I also noticed that the VLC has an AUI Ethernet device.  My
> network at home is 10BaseT, can I buy some type of converter to make the VLC
> compatible?

I think the 4000 VLC is just like to 4000/60 I have, but smaller. If that
is the case, you don't need a keyboard and monitor (and probably wouldn't
use them anyway). You need a serial terminal and either a SCSI CD drive or
another NetBSD machine to netboot. You could run mop and other stuff for
netbooting a VAX on another (free) Unix machine, like a Linux machine, but
it's really easy if you have NetBSD.

Regarding the AUI adapter, any network supply store worth being called a
network supply store will have them. It's just an AUI-to-10baseT adapter.

All in all, they're wonderful machines, and I, for one, am really
impressed at how modern the NetBSD-VAX people keep everything.

And it's damned cool to say, "My other computer is a VAX"...

John Klos