23 Jan
2000
23 Jan
'00
10:29 p.m.
Yeah, that's the machine/software. Terrible software, if an honest
attempt no doubt. Belongs in the Computer Museum. (It's such a pain
to use that I would not bother, that is.)
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Bradshaw <tfb(a)cley.com>
To: <rdkeys(a)unity.ncsu.edu>
Cc: <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2000 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: Anyone know what a Masscomp 5400 (54S-01) is?
* rdkeys wrote:
> On a surplus junket, today, I ran across a 2 dollar chassis that was
> listed as a Masscomp 5400 (54S-01) computer. It looked rather like
> a DECish based thing with dual height cards, like some sort of
laboratory
digital
aquisition machine. On the long-shot that it is some sort of
PDP-11ish thing, anyone have any recollection or pointers to any info
on that kind of a Masscomp machine?
Masscomps were 68k based machines, they had a whole bunch of stuff for
real-time and data-acquistion type stuff. They ran something called
RTU -- real-time Unix -- which was a weirdo sysv / BSD hybrid, not fun
to use. If the 5400 is the machine I remember it's a 68020 machine
but it may have a lot of cards for other stuff in. If it *is* the
machine we had it was deeply unreliable. Masscomp got bought by
someone else later on but I forget who, so they sometimes get badged
as some other make.
I would run away, fast.
--tim