YEAR: 1992
Initial Price: $15,999, $29,680 in 2020
Linux can be found anywhere these days, free distributions everywhere. Some like to say that they master Linux because they know how to install or configure Linux on a server. Nobody cares about that anymore and its not important on your CV or resume’ – and your paycheck will suck.
UNIX administrators are the ones that get the high pay, Especially the Commercial Unix admins.
This is Costel, a commercial UNIX machine that was given to me by a cool guy from Bucharest that I hope I will meet in person some day.
Costel is an IBM 7011-250 (re-badged as Bull DPX-20 / 100, was produced for the European market so it could be bought on EU founds. This PC is a PowerPC! 🙂
Main unit:
– 1 CPU PowerPC 601 66Mhz
– 96 MB Ram (4*16 + 4*8)
– 2.88 MB Floppy drive
– HDD SCSI 9Gb
– 2 network cards 10Mbps and RJ45 transceivers (1 on-board, 1 on MCA slot)
– MCA Board multi-serial (8 ports)
– No Video Card – Serial Port Console, serial cable
– AIX 5.1L installed. latest version that supports PowerPC601
-Original front-panel key.
Extra:
– CDs: AIX 4.3.3, AIX 5.1, copy of freeware archivet AIX 4.3.3 from bulfreeware.com
– CDROM SCSI external UltraPlex 40max, (sector-size selectable – old Macs and SGIs can boot from)
– Tape Drive SCSI VXA-1, external, SCSI Bull
– HDD SCSI 15Krpm 36Gb, external SCSI Sun
– SCSI Cables
– Data tapes 8mm VXA V17 + cleaning tape 8mm VXA + data tape 8mm Sony modified for compatibility with VXA + 12 other tapes of 8mm ready to be modified by me.
costel:~# prtconf
Is this machine for sale
I am looking for 7011-250 which is still functional
Hi, this machine is functional but is not for Sale. 🙂
Tenho vários servidores IBM-7011-250…
Happy to hear that!
I still use two of these at home and have a third and fourth for parts. Be careful with anything beyond AIX 5.0L ..they officially abandoned MCA/MCA2 at that point and you may break the SCSI subsystem (ie: it’ll disapear).
Surprising it was sold without graphics card. I have never seen one without it.
I have a bit of a deep affection for this silly old model. You can get them cranking upto 256mb ram. They use farily vanilla 36bit ECC 72pin FPM (non-EDO) server ram. I pulled some 64mb modules out of an old HP Proliant PentiumPRO system for it and the 256mb ram makes a big difference. I’ve subsequently found some 128mb modules, but haven’t gotten around to testing them yet in the -250’s. I’m dead curious to see if it can recognise 128mb in a bank because the PPC601’s MMU uses 256mb page segments and under AIX when you set the $LDR_CNTRL variable you can go beyond it if necessary ..I’m keen to study how this machine copes. It’d be lovely to have 512mb ram on this guy so I could build GCC natively, rather than cross-compiling on my power4 8114-275. Another thing that really helps is a SCSI2SD card for the root and usr and non-volitile directories. I use a traditional hard disk for swap /tmp, /var, and home dirs mounted off the NAS on 10/100 MCA card. Also these systems not only shipped with graphics card, also sometimes a sound card! It is called “Ultramedia Audio Adapter 6302” aka M-ACPA. I often wonder if it can work with PC’s and NT. Mostly mine is used to play mp3’s using 80% of CPU with mpg123 I have fiddled with to get it working on 4.3.3ml7. It also works brilliantly with DOOM/DOOM-II under X11/CDE.
Anyway, fun little machines. Mine gets much love 🙂 I am pleased there is still other owners out there!
Hi, I have one machine exactly as the one described here, to sell. With a multiserial card MCA. It power up, but I don’t have username and pass …
I am not an AIX expert but a fresh install of the OS should solve your issue. I don’t know if it can be bypassed. I am sure it could be a rapid sale on ebay or any vintage computer group.
Just ran into a couple machines, I noticed that the freeware archive for 4.3 is gone, would you mind parting with an ISO of your freeware disc?
Hi Blake,
I will look after the software and make an iso image or more. Thank you.