"Little" setup?! I'd say that's a pretty serious-looking setup! Looks awesome in fact, there's so much of it! Are you going to hang on to all of it? (just that it looks like you'd need an extra room to keep it all in!) - Nice find by the way

Is this one of the PowerPC machines that can run the PPC version of NT 4.0? It would be interesting to try it if so, it's rare to get a chance to try one of the few non-x86 versions of Windows.

HOLY ****!!!!!

That's an amazing haul for $35!

Nice haul! The RS/6000 is pretty sweet! I've been looking for a 604e based machine to run PowerPC Linux or AIX for a while now, but they always seem expensive for the capability.

Peace,
Drew

Yeah, they are quite pricey, which is why I was so shocked to nab one for this cheap.

I saw a comparable model sell on ebay for around $90... Plus, this one is in pristine condition, which might make it more desirable...

I was tempted by an 8x CPU IBM RISC box a few years ago, but all I could find in free OSes was partial or experimental support at the time. I think it was 8x 66MHz 601s or something.

Nice find for sure... enjoy tinkering with that beast. Is there much software available for PPC Windows NT? Seems like it would be hard to come by.

What OS you thinking of running full time on here? I haven't really heard of AIX, though I am researching now! Ubuntu... bad choice?

It's extremely unlikely to be supported in Ubuntu (Debian base). Your best bet is probably NetBSD - they have a port for that architecture - or AIX (IBM's house Unix)

So, have you decided what to do with it yet?

Nope, not yet.

As of now its not cooperating, not booting off the CD drive when I want it to, just going right to the hard drive.

But, I have gotten my hands on three more ( ) RS/6000s to toy with, as well as better install media and manuals (plus a load of SCSI bits and a DEC 3000 that might be dead). I should be able to pick them up in a few days, maybe a week or so.

From a local university where my dad is a student (he's getting his PHd in coastal resources management) he knows the IT guy very well, and we talked to him for a bit, and he has a few just laying around he can 'give' me. Really he 'loans' them to my dad through the university, and I can use them. Since they're so old and have been decomissioned for more than 5 years, no one cares about them.

So as long as I don't sell or destroy them, they're mine!

If I *didn't* take them, they would go to 'surplus'. For old computers and lab equipment, this means getting their name on some list which no one will look at, then putting them in storage. A few years later, they need to clean the storage for more equipment that noone cares about, so the stuff in there now gets junked.

(BTW - I have my 7500 and Wallstreet on this type of loan as well)

Yes, I'm going around reviving old threads. Sorry, I just found PPCMLA...

I recently got an IBM "Personal Computer Power Edition", which is basically a slightly modified RS/6000. It came with NT 4 on it, and I managed to acquire a copy of OS/2 PowerPC Edition, but killed the boot loader trying to get it installed. These machines use custom boot loaders on a hard drive partition; and I can't get the boot loader to reinstall properly to let me re-install any OS. (I've tried OS/2, NT4, NetBSD...) I don't have any copies of AIX, but I'm not even sure this machine can run AIX. (From what I can tell, that's one of the changes made for the "PC Power Edition" from the RS/6000.)

As for PPC NT software? When I first got the machine, it had NT on it, with *NO* PPC-native software. In lots of searching, I haven't been able to find any. But, it does include an x86 emulator (as does OS/2 PPC,) so you can run standard x86 NT software just fine. (I installed Microsoft Office, and it ran fine.) (And OS/2 PPC can run x86 DOS, Windows 3.x, including Win32s, and x86 OS/2 apps.)

If I remember right, there was no software ever made for NT4 PPC. It was always a beta program and never advanced further than that, if I remember right.

No idea about getting an OS on there, but if it's anything like an RS/6000, you're in for quite a trip. Getting the thing to boot of a dang CD is hard enough, but then you have to install and configure it. Belch.

Yeah, from my research, I've figured out that it is essentially an RS/6000 motherboard with slight firmware changes.

It has a goofy tray-load CD-ROM drive where the whole mechanism comes out with the tray (similar in style to most non-slot-load notebook optical drives; only this one is standard desktop size.) Of course, it won't read ANY CD-R discs, even ones burned at 1x. And the floppy drive is failing, too. At least they're standard parts. I'll swap the floppy no problem, and I think I have a newer SCSI CD-ROM drive around somewhere that can read CD-Rs.

Yeah, the floppy drive should be a standard PC one and the CD drive should be 50pin SCSI like on macs. You also might want to look in the system management services (like a PC's BIOS) to make sure the boot order has the floppy and CD drives before the hard drive or network.

Yeah, once I get a new floppy and CD drive in there, I should be able to get it running. My problem is that I can get into SMS, but it won't boot to CD. And I don't have any boot floppies.

ive got a question, is there any way tht these machines could be made to boot one of these? correct me if im wrong, but doesnt the mac os support CHRP?

These aren't chrp, they're prep, and afaik the macs that have chrp use a special chipset.

There was a version of OS 8 that was supposed to boot on the CHRP Starmax 6000, but Apple refused to certify CHRP Macs (probably because they smoked Apple's own hardware).

If you dig out OS 8.1, you might get lucky and get it working. Or maybe 8.2. But I highly doubt it because the OS probably doesn't know how to use the hardware in one of these boxes.

Peace,
Drew

I'm still waiting to find a ANS for under $50.

I can never find RS/6000 machines cheap enough or I'd have one by now.