What was the PPRO haul?

I am interested in any case. I was searching for a branded computer tower form factor dual socket 7 for some time.

Pentium Pro haul of 2018:
The great Pentium Pro haul of 2018

I can't imagine how much shipping from the USA to Spain would be for one of these NEC systems.. but definitely not cheap.

These systems are available in the Topeka, Kansas area.

I wouldn't be the one doing a buy, but if anybody wants, I can put them in touch with the person that has these (getting ready to scrap / part out). I would get nothing out of this. Just trying to prevent some nice old systems from being scrapped.

These systems came from NOAA
https://www.noaa.gov/

The drives of course have been removed.

Man, It'd be a shame for them to be scrapped. I've gotta say that I personally really like the look of the cases on older NEC computer in general (E.g NEC Ready, PC-98, etc.)

I saw one of these on eBay the other day. I assumed it was socket 370 for a second because dual socket 7 is so rare.

BinaryDemon wrote:

I saw one of these on eBay the other day. I assumed it was socket 370 for a second because dual socket 7 is so rare.

That was probably the one I bought that you saw. I was surprised I was the only bidder.

dual socket 7 huh? I could be in for one if there's a group buy

If there is little to no cost for the system and I just need to pay ground shipping to Canada, I'm interested. I've always liked the high-end classy look of these NEC systems.

EDIT: It's also interesting to see that the system got away with a case fan and not direct heatsink fan.

If anybody has access to the manual or utilities for this server it would be awesome.

NEC links to their old ftp server which apparently no longer exists.
https://support.necam.com/Drivers/?M=453&x=14&y=7

Searching for the file names yields nothing.

Edit:
Can anybody actually get to ftp.necam.com ?

It looks like it was definitely up as of last year at least.

ftp site seems unreachable and none of the mirror archives seem to fair any better.

I assume the user manual HLP file might be a standalone version of this

ProServa V Plus Online Service Reference

Table of Contents - https://web.archive.org/web/19991003025226/ht … 4000903908.html

Index - https://web.archive.org/web/19991011063005/ht … 03908index.html

Afraid you'll have to use your imagination for the illustrations which weren't archived, but there's a good page on jumper settings under 'Configuration'

BTW, is that an Intel chassis its built in?

Wow, just WOW.

I really hope somebody will get into saving these. Unfortunately, I can't even think of the shipping price for me - or I would have loved to own one ..

That is one beautiful system. i430HX chipset with EISA southbridge(s), 2 tag RAMs for 512MB L2 cachable. It looks like an Intel OEM motherboard design (those jumpers along the front are a dead giveaway), and it wouldn't surprise me if the case was Intel too - in those days NEC was basically an Intel-only system integrator.

The only downsides are directly related to Intel-design:
- soldered RTC that needs replacing or hacking in-situ.
- soldered SMD flash instead of socketed BIOS, so careful with those updates...

Unfortunately I'm not even on the right continent to do anything sensible about rescueing these systems 😢

He seems to be selling the board/cpu/ram combo separate as well, but the IO riser makes case selection awkward, otherwise I might take a punt on one (may do anyway!)

He is also selling the power supplies separately.

He told me that there were originally 175 of these systems... If it was a few hours closer to me I might be up for saving them.. but as it is, it would be around 15 hours each way.

They were also sold under a Zenith Data Systems part number.. Zenith merged with NEC / Packard Bell in 1996.

@PC Hoarder Patrol - thanks for those links. I think that should be all that is really needed.

Edit: Full list of archived Proserva V Plus pages from that site - make sure to go back to 1999 to access them:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://support. … roServerVPlus/*

cyclone3d wrote:

Pentium Pro haul of 2018:
The great Pentium Pro haul of 2018

I can't imagine how much shipping from the USA to Spain would be for one of these NEC systems.. but definitely not cheap.

Still interested. Shipping will be cheaper than waiting for a local opportunity.

I imagine that the success of the operation depends in some local heroe(s) close enough and with enough storing space... Go for it! 😜

I would also be interested if price (+shipping to europe) is acceptable. I also dont like to see that being scrapped...

A bit more digging indicates that the ProServa is a rebrand of the Zenith (ZDS) Z-Server WL

https://web.archive.org/web/19970517193830/ht … vers/5_3b1.html

Sadly, the documentation (ref. ZDSDOCS00600100) was never archived though the software library was 😀

https://web.archive.org/web/19980702025406/ht … drv/cat026.html

some of these files need a decompression utility

https://web.archive.org/web/19980702025104/ht … drv/cat154.html

As the RTC looks like the ramified DS1387 (so no direct replacement), it'll either work or it's a mod job.

HAHA!!!!! Yes! 😲 😀 😎

The documentation for the Z-Server WL is included in the Packard Bell ftp archive.

I'll post it all up once I finish digging through the ZDSDOCS00600100 folder.

Edit: The user manual is there... but I need to edit the HTML so the links don't point to the ftp.. and so the dumb spiral notebook background is not there because it goes right through the middle of the page and makes stuff unreadable.

Edit:
So that folder contains the "Z-CD".. which is information on pretty much all of the systems they had around that time.
I didn't actually edit anything. It will run fine as long as you set the screen resolution to 1024x768.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=17UziKMDDO2D … 4OMFVPZ_1E6SkJG

I would be interested cyclone3d, please PM me with the contact info, thanks !