<If you're looking for an easy cheap VAX box to learn on, I can't say
<anything could be easier in vax terms than a Vaxstation 3100... the
<M30's have problems but the M76's rock so I hear...  I have an M30 and
<am amazed at its performance...  I've heard stories of people picking up
<low-ish end VS3100 systems (50mb/100mb HD's, 

Relative performance:

A 730 is about .3 VUP
  750          .6
  780          1     the gold standard
  782          2
  785          4
8650           7

Below are al chip based cpus and with the exception of the 6000 all small 
in size. (only a sample).

Microvax-II    .9
VS2000         .9
3100m38        3.8
3100m30        5.0
3100m76        7.6
3100m90        24
6000/410       38

Moral if anything is newer it's faster.  Microvax-IIs, Vs2000 and 3100s are 
all newer and can be found cheap to free but they may be short up of the 
needed disks.

Allison