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Apollo / HP machines.

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afleetcommand

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Feb 5, 2008
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I have a running HP/Apollo 400T and would like to bring it back to life as a Domain based system. Anyone have a build where I can format a disk and load up Domain?
 
try classiccmp.org mailing list.

I recently obtained an Apollo mobo on eBay. Functional state unknown. It's a pretty vanilla 680x0 based machine w/1 big black ASIC. Have a rusty old generic AT case out in the yard. Got to wet sand the rust off, repaint it, and think about mounting it in that. Had a guy offer me some Apollo equipment, but like everything else it's in blasted California, so shipping is prohibitive w/my current pay-rate...
 
The 400T is a 68000 machine...is built tank tough! Just need a Disk with an OS! They were a fun machine in their day and the Domain IX was an awesome local area networking OS! Still looking...
 
Yes, the OS for those old HP/Apollo machine came on cartridge tape - no CD ROM or other "easy" media. Also, the pre-HP machines used either cartridge tape, or 8 inch floppy. I have several sets of floppies for Domain/OS, and some engineering software, but no Domain/OS tapes. I used to have an Apollo DN660 which is what the floppies were for, but none of that software will work on the newer HP/Apollo machines. Finding the tape drive is probably the easy part. Finding the tapes may be the hard part.
 
Yes as was mentioned most media at that time for those late 1980.s early 1990's HP and Apollo's were those "dat" tapes and those larger Tape Cartrigdes. I have both devices for my Apollo and HP's.

One thing I did as an AE was to "daisy chain" a disk drive and either boot to the new drive & copy after formating the old one or with some machines do a "dd" copy. Those old HP-IB interfaces were nice and those later SCSI machines were even better for that type of thing. I just have forgotten how to setup the disk and drivers in /dev/ in my old age.
 
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yup, that's a pretty vanilla 680x0 based machine w/1 big black ASIC. Have a rusty old generic AT case out in the yard. Got to wet sand the rust off, repaint it, and think about mounting it in that.
 
I did some looking for web sites about the old Apollo machines, but the Internet seems to be dead regarding them. Did I miss something? Is there really no archive of manuals and software, or collection of these things aside from the odd museum piece. I still have a DN660 chassis and some boards, though not a complete working machine (I sold the working machine a long time ago). I used to manage the Apollo computers at my college where we ran Mentor Graphics software for circuit and IC design. We had everything from a few DN100's up to DN4000 HP/Apollo machines. The university eventually gave me the original DN660 (it was their first Apollo - and the machine that started me on Unix and big mainframes) because they didn't care about it anymore. I also had a DN560 (which used cartridge tapes), but that too I sold long ago, including all the software.

I found some 150 MB tape cartridges last night in a box, but none of them contained Domain/OS or any Apollo software. So I'm pretty sure all I have are random 8 inch floppies of Domain/OS stuff and Mentor graphics - all floppies which were marked "ok to erase" as they were not the most recent version of the software. So they may not be complete sets.
 
http://www.hpmuseum.net/

There is a bunch of information and software there, but no DOMAIN OS imaghes (figured you would have found it using google or I would have posted it earlier).

I would love a 400S, but the odds of finding one around here complete are next to impossible.
 
Lohmeyer said:
So I'm pretty sure all I have are random 8 inch floppies of Domain/OS stuff and Mentor graphics - all floppies which were marked "ok to erase" as they were not the most recent version of the software. So they may not be complete sets.
Click to expand...

Lohmeyer - I've got an incomplete set of SR8.0 floppies and what might be a relatively full set of 8" floppies corresponding to an SR9.2ish release..?

If you still have these disks I would be interested in comparing notes and perhaps pooling resources. Let me know. Thanks!
 
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