chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-02-20, 17:50:

That is a sexy beast you have there. All those screens just look fantastic . Excellent job with this machine.

Thank you sir. I actually had no idea those LCD panels lit up like that on the caddies. It was a nice surprise.

Nice. That system just looks like it's important and means business

Don't know how I missed this one, but another good archived resource for ALR 6x6 owners: https://web.archive.org/web/20010423021407/ht … et/alrbase.html

Note: The best part of this archived website is the mapped out motherboard power connector pinouts.

I just read through some of that site and that's quite a wealth of information on it. It's also fascinating to read how they got the system running.

The caddies looks amazing on the server. By the way, only 25 beige left for sale.

If anyone reads this, I have the 6x6 less muscled brother, Alr revolution quad 6, had for long time, last time I tried firing it up it simply beeped and no post, replaced the clock battery, no change, I had a new old stock motherboard still in antistatic bag, installed it and it too beeped a 1 2 2 3 pattern , (bios checksum) New battery no change, can a bios become corrupted without ever being used, can a battery slowly going dead trash a bios, finally does anyone have a bios file or unisys equivalent or point to someplace that might have bios files, hopefully I might be able to reprogram the bios via a bios programmer.
Jimmy

its quite possible. Its called bit-rot.

CAn you provide a pic of the board? I may have the exact same on and can pull the bios off it for you.

I will provide that tomorrow.
Jimmy

Pix of the original alr quad 6 mb and pix of bios chip, the other mb is the unisys identical with one extra power connector.
Jimmy

luckybob wrote on 2021-10-23, 22:34:

its quite possible. Its called bit-rot.

CAn you provide a pic of the board? I may have the exact same on and can pull the bios off it for you.

Not sure I can post image here but one is posted where you responded yesterday.
Jimmy

your dallas chip is missing, and thats not the bios, its U68 on the middle right. (square)

i have a couple of those boards, i'll get them out of storage asap and give you a download of both chips. I presume you have a chip programmer?

The dallas chip I removed because it was 20 years old and dead, I have new ones, don't currently have a programmer, any suggestions as to one that will accept that type of chip? Most ones I see are usb based with various accessories. I should have known the IFM on the other chip probably means Information Manager (lcd info screen).
Jimmy

i'll have to check once I see the chip, if its a standard one, then TL-866II is the cheap go-to.

Any luck pulling a copy of the bios firmware from your quad 6 motherboards?

if they had 64bit core cpu's i bet it'd be running server 2020

Luckybob haven't gotten any feedback for a while about your attempt at pulling a bios copy from your Alr Quad 6 motherboard, what's up?
Jimmy

I only just unburied it last night.

I have the programmer you mentioned and found a combination that allowed me to read the two different bios chips, have no way to tell if any code is missing or corrupt, both chips show nothing but dots in the Ascii column until almost 3/4 down from top, one then shows Phoenix bios info , machine code to the bottom and bios date code of December 1996, the other chip does not show Phoenix info, machine code to bottom and ends at September 1996.
Jimmy

Hi, I'm new here! Just got new Unisys Aquanta HS/6U / Revolution 6x6 in Czechia (from Slovakia brothers). I will be silently watching here for a while. I have also EEPROM reader, so will probably backup my BIOS as well. I'm looking for SCSI card and that nice 5.25 bay SCSI addon perhaps as well 😀

First thing I'm gonna try is: DOOM haha. Then install WinXP and try .NET with SMP and also Linux with Python. Then I would like to try to run 6x DOS window sandboxed on individual CPUs. Therefore it should be able to run 6x Quake with software rendering, correct?

Tell me how you use your server! What kind of apps and OS you run? Would OS/2 handle all CPU's and give DOS support?

cyberluke wrote on 2022-01-26, 21:03:

Hi, I'm new here! Just got new Unisys Aquanta HS/6U / Revolution 6x6 in Czechia (from Slovakia brothers). I will be silently watching here for a while. I have also EEPROM reader, so will probably backup my BIOS as well. I'm looking for SCSI card and that nice 5.25 bay SCSI addon perhaps as well 😀

First thing I'm gonna try is: DOOM haha. Then install WinXP and try .NET with SMP and also Linux with Python. Then I would like to try to run 6x DOS window sandboxed on individual CPUs. Therefore it should be able to run 6x Quake with software rendering, correct?

Tell me how you use your server! What kind of apps and OS you run? Would OS/2 handle all CPU's and give DOS support?

Congrats. Those are not easy to find. I have since found good homes for all of mine. As you can see from my video, Doom runs just fine. I am sure you have read through this thread so make sure to get all the resources from the ALR 6x6 archive that is mentioned. The later BIOS revisions have the Unisys logo at post and the earlier revisions have the blue ALR logo. One person that snagged one of my floor models found the later Unisys BIOS disabled the on-board SCSI controller. It wasn't until they downgraded their BIOS to an earlier revision that the on-board SCSI controller worked again. Just FYI. Of course be very careful messing with the BIOS as you don't want to brick such a rare system. You are in good company, though, as there are a few 6x6 owners that roam these halls and they might help out if you have a technical issue. If you find time, please make a video about your system. When I posted about mine there were zero videos about the 6x6 systems. The more info the better as these don't turn up very often.