![\"\"](\"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/vaxstation-4000-vlc_36802064166_o-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
DEC VAX machines are probably my favorite to collect and use. I love the VAX instruction set, OpenVMS is my favorite enterprise-grade OS, and I love Berkeley UNIX on VAX.<\/p>\n
This particular VAX is a VAXstation 4000 VLC (Very Low Cost), introduced in 1991 with a 25MHz KA48 system-on-chip CPU module and 24MB RAM, as well as an NCR SCSI HBA and an RZ26-E hard drive. It was donated to me by a generous member of the retrocomputing community. I paid for naught but shipping charges. This is a really tiny VAX! When it got to me, it worked perfectly running OpenVMS, but had no TCP\/IP stack installed. I was determined to upgrade it to OpenVMS 7.3, and sadly, in the process of trying to connect a CD-ROM drive to it, I shorted out the original hard drive’s circuit board against the case metal. Stupid, stupid, stupid.<\/p>\n
The machine still worked fine otherwise, and I was even able to make it a satellite node in my VMScluster setup.<\/p>\n
I finally decided it was time to get to a serious restoration, as this machine is obviously filthy and extremely yellowed.<\/p>\n
Here is a photo after initial scrubbing:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/vaxstation-4000-vlc_36818456282_o-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Clean, but still yellowed. Here it is prepped with salon creme for de-yellowing:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/vaxstation-4000-vlc_36989831155_o-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
While waiting for the casework to de-yellow outside, I worked on the inside of the computer’s case:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/vaxstation-4000-vlc_36989831115_o-1024x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Here it is after the initial round of de-yellowing:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/vaxstation-4000-vlc_36989830765_o-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
And here it is after the second round, the next day:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/vaxstation-4000-vlc_36989830885_o-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
It needs one short round to clear up some of the streaking on the bottom left corner of the top of the case. This tends to happen with all retr0bright-like processes, but is fortunately quite easily correctable in most cases.<\/p>\n
I have a number of DEC SCSI hard drives and an RRD42 CD-ROM drive to connect to this machine, and will post an update once this is complete and functional as the fifth member of my OpenVMS cluster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DEC VAX machines are probably my favorite to collect and use. I love the VAX instruction set, OpenVMS is my favorite enterprise-grade OS, and I love...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,14,13,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/datashed.tech\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}