On 2020-06-14 20:11, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 07:21:17PM +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:No, I'm pretty sure the TKZ-50 was explicitly made for the uVAX2000. That machine only have an MFM interface for disks, and a SCSI controller, who's only purpose was to connect to the tape drive. There were nothing else in it. Also, the form factor of the TKZ-50 case is identical to the uVAX2000, and they were stacked on top of each other, if I remember right.The TKZ-50 is the controller, no? The TK-50 is the drive; sold as a "standalone" SCSI unit (in a case which was very similar, but not identical, to the uV/VS2000, and indeed would stack with it) it was a "TK50Z".
I think you're right, and I am mixing up nomenclature. I should still have one somewhere among my junk, but it's difficult to get to at the moment, so I can't really check things up.
I used and supported a lot of TK50s in that enclosure that were sold with new DECstations. The TK50 didn't have adequate capacity to actually back up the drives typically installed in these machines; but then again, we also sold a lot of 100MB drives that weren't large enough to install the then-current release of Ultrix and had to take them back and replace them for free, so...
The TK50 was/is horrible.It was a good idea, but the original implementation was not fun. Capacity was ok back when the largest disk on those machines were the RD53 at 67M, but after that it became even more painful.
The TK70 made it definitely more usable. The biggest issue with that one was that you could only read TK50, and not write them. So you had to keep TK50 drives around for all distributions you made.
And the speed of the TK50 was horrible. It took forever to do anything.Yes, it's sad to see how DEC tried to squeeze the customers. They had really good stuff around, but they totally screwed their customers. Both small and big. It's really sad. Such a great technology company, but totally messed by the mid 80s when it came to customer relations, and it only became worse all the time.
Johnny
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