ZXnet

Digital VAXstation 4000/60

The TEMPEST VAXstation 3100, part RF-VS42A-BN, is a VAXstation 3100 model 30 with special RF shielding for security. Visually its a big heavy metal box with a door on the front and none of the usual ventilation holes. The system was designed to be used with specially RF shielded periperals and so the back contains a mix of connectors that range from shielded versions of the normal VAXstation ports to completely non-standard things like optical networking:

This machine can be found on the December '91 US Systems Services Price List under TEMPEST systems for US$16k including display, keyboard, mouse and VMS license. TEMPEST shielded terminals, printers and other equipment were also available.

Removable Media

A door at the front of the unit provides access to removable media - a floppy drive in the case of this machine. It can be unlocked by pushing down on the top part of the latch, lifting up the lever that pops up, then twisting it. The door then folds down to reveal... a completely normal VAXstation 3100 hiding in a big metal box.

Inside the RF Box

Inside the RF enclosure is a regular VAXstation 3100 model 30. And for over thirty years the steel RF enclsoure has taken all the dirt, scratches and sun damange leaving the VAXstation 3100 inside as pristine as you'll find outside of a new-old-stock unit. Not a single scratch, not a single spot of yellowing.

And being a standard off-the-shelf VAXstation 3100 on the inside, all those weird ports on the back just connect up to the normal ports internally:

Quick Notes

• The weird round SCSI port is labeled BENDIX-8920 LJTPQ00RE-17-35P(424) (perhaps a MIL-DTL-38999 connector?). I don't know if the pinout is specific to DEC, or if this is following some kind of NATO standard for SCSI connectors
• The optical network interface is almost equally mysterious. I'm not sure what sort of transciever should be used on the other end - perhaps one of RF-FOAFB, RF-FOAMB, RF-H4000. The ICs all look pretty off-the-shelf though so perhaps this an implementation of some kind of late 80s optical networking standard.

Documentation

I have none! I assume there would have been some special manuals to cover proper installation and operation (like don't leave the door on the front open all the time), but if these did exist I've not been able to find them. If you've got any information or manuals for these systems I'd love to hear from you! My email address is david at this websites domain (without the www. of course)