Anyone know what a Masscomp 5400 (54S-01) is?

Anyone know what a Masscomp 5400 (54S-01) is?

[John Rosenberg]

Yeah, that's the machine/software. Terrible software, if an honest
attempt no doubt. Belongs in the Computer Museum. (It's such a pain
to use that I would not bother, that is.)

----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Bradshaw <tfb@cley.com>
To: <rdkeys at unity.ncsu.edu>
Cc: <pups at minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Sent: Friday, January 21, 2000 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: Anyone know what a Masscomp 5400 (54S-01) is?


> * rdkeys  wrote:
> > On a surplus junket, today, I ran across a 2 dollar chassis that was
> > listed as a Masscomp 5400 (54S-01) computer.  It looked rather like
> > a DECish based thing with dual height cards, like some sort of
laboratory
> > digital aquisition machine.  On the long-shot that it is some sort of
> > PDP-11ish thing, anyone have any recollection or pointers to any info
> > on that kind of a Masscomp machine?
>
> Masscomps were 68k based machines, they had a whole bunch of stuff for
> real-time and data-acquistion type stuff.  They ran something called
> RTU -- real-time Unix -- which was a weirdo sysv / BSD hybrid, not fun
> to use.  If the 5400 is the machine I remember it's a 68020 machine
> but it may have a lot of cards for other stuff in.  If it *is* the
> machine we had it was deeply unreliable.  Masscomp got bought by
> someone else later on but I forget who, so they sometimes get badged
> as some other make.
>
> I would run away, fast.
>
> --tim
>
>
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Anyone know what a Masscomp 5400 (54S-01) is?

[Greg Lehey]

On Friday, 21 January 2000 at 16:44:34 +0000, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> * rdkeys  wrote:
>> On a surplus junket, today, I ran across a 2 dollar chassis that was
>> listed as a Masscomp 5400 (54S-01) computer.  It looked rather like
>> a DECish based thing with dual height cards, like some sort of laboratory
>> digital aquisition machine.  On the long-shot that it is some sort of
>> PDP-11ish thing, anyone have any recollection or pointers to any info
>> on that kind of a Masscomp machine?
>
> Masscomps were 68k based machines, they had a whole bunch of stuff for
> real-time and data-acquistion type stuff.  They ran something called
> RTU -- real-time Unix -- which was a weirdo sysv / BSD hybrid, not fun
> to use.  If the 5400 is the machine I remember it's a 68020 machine
> but it may have a lot of cards for other stuff in.  If it *is* the
> machine we had it was deeply unreliable.  Masscomp got bought by
> someone else later on but I forget who, so they sometimes get badged
> as some other make.
>
> I would run away, fast.

On the other hand, IIRC this was the machine which was the basis for
the Egan/Teixeira (sp?) book on writing UNIX drivers.  It might be
amusing for that reason alone.  If it's functional and you have the
space, you probably won't regret the $2 you spend for it.

Greg
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