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Intergraph WS 6000

sorrow

New Member
Joined
Jan 5, 2020
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4
Hi,

I bought this one from an elder gentleman. I have only the computer and no accessories.

I wonder whether somebody has any manuals or at least advise what are the correct peripherals and how to connect them.

S.
 

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keyboard and mouse (or digitizing tablet) are intergraph specific, and plug in to P0, along with the monitor(s). Without that cable, you're going to have to work out how. In the meanwhile you'll definitely want to take the hard drive out and make a block-level archive copy of it as the Microstation software is tied to this machine's serial number and you won't want to mess around with reinstalling the thing from distribution media without having preserved the license keys that are currently on there. I don't know what else to say at this point besides, "...good luck."
 
Nice find! Unfortunately I think it's going to be difficult to get this system going.

If the label on the back is correct, this is a model 6040 which has the original EDGE/1 accelerated graphics board fitted. As bear mentions, this board routes both graphic and serial signals through the P0 connector, and normally that port connects to a specific Intergraph monitor (typically a 27" fixed frequency one), which breaks out the mouse/tablet/keyboard ports so these peripherals can be connected to the monitor.

The other ports on the back panel from top down are most likely Ethernet (BNC and AUI), male DB25 serial (RS232/RS449 configurable), and a differential plotter port. Of course the other port with the terminator installed is the external SCSI port, which is simply a continuation of the internal bus to which your hard disk is connected. The serial port also hosts two separate serial channels, so you'll need a splitter cable to break them both out, but I think the key port 0 signals are on the default pins for a DB25. The plotter port can be converted to Versatec or Centronics with a suitable adapter (again, probably nearly impossible to find).

There's a slim possibility you can get this system to do something without peripherals by removing the graphics board and connecting a serial terminal to the DB25. I totally agree with bear that you should remove and image the hard disk first, to preserve anything that might be interesting and provide some recourse if/when the device fails. Without hard disk and graphics, the system firmware should hopefully boot up on the serial console and from there you should be able to install and use the CLIX OS from the console if you're patient.

While I know none of this is much help, I'd selfishly like to ask you to tear the machine apart and take high quality pictures of the internals and dump any of the EPROMs that you can find on the main board and graphics board. These may help improve the preservation of these systems via emulation in future; as you can see these systems are vanishingly rare these days.

PS: You can find a small amount of information I've collected about these systems here.
 
FWIW the correct keyboard does occasionally show up on ebay, though there isn't one there now and you've got a long row to hoe before the lack of one becomes more than a theoretical problem.

looks like this, and I don't believe there exist any that look the same but are unusable with this machine. https://www.recycledgoods.com/intergraph-terminal-keyboard-ftis16603/

I want to know why there are seven coax connectors in the DD24W7. You need between 3 and 5 to drive a single monitor, so what are the other two for? Intergraph famously had many dual-monitor configurations, so it could drive two monitors I suppose, but then they'd both share one composite sync? The only other Intergraph I've seen with the DD24W7 had two of them (and was also a bare box with no cables, displays, peripherals, etc.) so I have only guesses.
 
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Thanks a lot, guys!

If I understand it correctly, without monitor(s) serving as a signal splitter I will not be able to connect any peripherals. And building one without documentation is, unfortunately, beyond my skills.

I will be hunting for the keyboard that @bear pointed out. I already bough a DB9 INTERGRAPH 3-button mouse but I have no idea whether it is the correct one.

As for the PROM/HDD preservation and serial console boot: although I do have some experience with SUN and other Unix machines, I think I would need guidance not to mess it up. @pmackinlay: feel free to contact me if you are willing to invest some time together. But without help the best way how to preserve it is (I think) to let it be as it is :)

P.S. I created another post about Chromatics CX-2000 Unix-driven graphic terminal but it seems to have disappeared. I'm rather new here around - any idea where it has gone?
 
It may be pending moderation, but I'd LOVE to see what you got regarding Chromatics once the thread is approved by a moderator.
 
It may be pending moderation, but I'd LOVE to see what you got regarding Chromatics once the thread is approved by a moderator.
Hi @NeXT ,

It is a very strange bird:

Inside, there is:

1) PSU
2) big Mainboard with SIMM slots
3) paralel graphic board with Barco/Chromatics chips and BNC connectors on the outside
4) VME backplane and VME cage
5) VME card that seems to be SUN 3/E CPU (pn 501-8028-06206)
6) VME card that seems to be SUN ethernet/serial card (pn 501-8027-13106)
7) VME card named VME hardcopy, probably SCSI card

TLDR: there is a SUN 3/E server inside of a bigger box together with some other graphics hardware that it controls.

So far, I only peeked inside. A small part seems to be brokem and I found it on the bottom of the box, SIMM modules are missing and PSU is dead. So it is probably far from operational status.
 

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I have the same Intergraph workstation.
As you may already know, you need the monitor which has 24w7 built-in cable. The keyboard and mouse connect directly to the monitor. The keyboard itself doesn't use the din Intergraph connector, but rather db(25?) connector - don't remember right now. The mouse connector is db9 male.
You need to remove the graphics adapter in order to access the console. If you don't have the 3way pigtail serial cable, I will post the pinout schema here.
If the disk works you need definitely to dump it.

PS: The plastics are in beautiful condition :)
 
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