[Simh] VUPs?

[Alan Frisbie]

> > Not performance related, but I remember that DEC sold a variant of
> > the VAXstation-II at a lower price, about half as much as the -II.
> >
> > This lower-priced machine was virtually identical to the
> > VAXstation-II, except that they had epoxied four of the eight QBUS
> > slots, rendering them unusable. The processor, memory, graphics, and
> > I/O cards were all the same. The only limitation was on future QBUS
> > card expansion.

> How much did a non-epoxied backplane cost as a spare part?  Also, FWIW, 
> a BA23 has 9 slots not 8. :)

I was an early purchaser of the VAXstation-II/RC, or as I called
it, "Resin Cured".   :-)   I had the box open and examined
within 30 minutes of when it arrived on my doorstep.   Three of
the nine quad slots (I just checked mine) were filled with expoxy.

My report to "Charley Matco" (Terry Shannon) on this earned me
one of the prized Charley Matco mugs.

It cost about $15K as opposed to an almost identical one without
the expoxy for $25K.   The cost of a spare H9278 backplane was
about $450, but DEC quickly caught on and removed it from the
price book.   A third-party company, Zoltech, promptly made their
own version for sale.

The reason for the /RC was that the competition (Sun, etc.) were
beating DEC badly with inexpensive boxes.   DEC's competition,
the MicroVAX 2000, was late to market so DEC needed to do
something quickly just to preserve market share.   At the same
time, they couldn't afford to just drop the price of the full
sized MicroVAX-II.   The answer was the /RC which only lasted
until the 2000 was done.

Alan Frisbie