Template talk:Nav VAX

VAXserver models

Another topic: All VAXserver models are missing in the "Nav VAX" ... Vaxorcist (talk) 16:27, 17 June 2022 (CEST)

Adding them is fine with me. Will that not make the navigation box large, though? There is some way to have blocks of things 'hidden', so you have to click on them to see the detail. That would reduce the size of the VAX navigation box, but leave everything accessible: i.e. there would be a 'VAXservers' button that one would have to click on to see the list of all the models. I don't know how to do that, though; I do not recall seeing one here on the CHWiki. I have seen them on Wikipedia, though, so there is a way to do it with MediaWiki. Jnc (talk) 18:53, 17 June 2022 (CEST)

Here is one. If you look in the bottom right corner, you will see a "[show]" button which, when clicked, expands that section of the b0x.

I have yet to see how it does that; there is a complex set of nested templates involved. Jnc (talk) 19:26, 17 June 2022 (CEST)

Very complicated; start here and here. Jnc (talk) 21:55, 17 June 2022 (CEST)

Ahah! I have worked out how to do collapsible nav boxes on the CHWiki. So if you want to list dozens of VAX types in the VAX nav box, and have them hidden, normally, we can do that. I'm going to investigate further; it should be possible to have a nav box where entries 'above the line' are always shown, and entries 'below the line' (for less 'interesting' ones) are initially hidden, and one has to click the '[show]" button to see them.

Here is the help page which explains how complex templates (ones with arguments, and conditionals) work, if you care / are interested. Jnc (talk) 01:37, 19 June 2022 (CEST)

Yes, we can have a two-part nav box; see sample here. Jnc (talk) 02:10, 19 June 2022 (CEST)

Condense duplicates

A lot of the MicroVAXen seem to come in MicroVAX, VAXserver, and VAXstation variants; a complete table that lists them all would be huge. I think we should try and condense it as much as possible. E.g. instead of listing VAX 4000 series, VAXserver 4000 series and VAXstation 4000 series, we should just have one 'VAX 4000 series' entry, accepting the fact that to get to the 'VAXserver 4000 series' or 'VAXstation 4000 series' will take an extra click. Jnc (talk) 21:50, 22 March 2023 (CET)

Good idea - I agree. There are so many commonalities between the variants of a "VAX family" which would have to be repeated if treated in different places. In some special cases where there are no other variants (e.g. VAXstation 3520/3540 and VAXstation 3820/3840 (not yet included), which have neither VAXserver nor MicroVAX variants), one could mention that in the respective page. Vaxorcist (talk) 22:20, 22 March 2023 (CET)

Yes; I have mentioned the VAX 4000/VAXserver 4000/VAXstation 4000 links in each of those pages, to group them all together, and will do the same to any similar groups I find. (Although the VAXstation 4000s are quite different from the VAX 4000/VAXserver 4000; the latter have a QBUS backplane, whereas the VAXstation 4000s all seem to use motherboards. I'll have to make a note of that.)

I made sure to leave the VAXstation 3200/3500, VAXstation 3520/3540 and VAXstation 8000 entries here because as far as I can see, they are unique units. (Although there is a MicroVAX 3500, we don't have a MicroVAX 3200 page - and although some Web pages mention it, it doesn't seem to exist in any DEC documents.) There is a MicroVAX 2000, but I don't know if it has any relationship to the VAXstation 2000, so I have left the latter here for now. Jnc (talk) 23:23, 22 March 2023 (CET)

Per the VAXstation 2000 and MicroVAX 2000 Technical Manual, the MicroVAX 2000 and VAXstation 2000 seem to be basically the same machine, with a dumb terminal (VT220) on the former, and a display on the latter. So I will remove the VAXstation 2000 link here, after making sure the MicroVAX 2000 and VAXstation 2000 pages reference each other.

Then, on to the MicroVAX 3100 and VAXstation 3100; I need to upgrade the former's page first! Given that there is a MicroVAX 3100 and VAXserver 3100 Owner's Manual, it looks like they may be the same kind of thing. Jnc (talk) 13:52, 23 March 2023 (CET)

So I mis-read that title (it says 'MicroVAX 3100 and VAXserver 3100'), but it turns out that the MicroVAX 3100 and the VAXstation 3100 are basically the same machine, the latter with an added display. The MicroVAX 3100, VAXstation 3100 and VAXserver 3100 pages now all reference each other. Jnc (talk) 17:01, 24 March 2023 (CET)

Merging of the VAX 85xx series and VAX 8700/88xx series

I'd like to merge the VAX 85xx series and VAX 8700/88xx series as the commonalities are very considerable. Having two separate pages would create too much duplication.

After that I'd start writing the page.

Any objections? Vaxorcist (talk) 16:43, 19 May 2023 (CEST)

I was working on all this, but then I got distracted, and never got back to it. I'm trying to remember now what I had discovered in my researches. Looking at the tabs I have open, I was apparently trying to work out the relationship between the 8500 and 8550, and between them and the 8700/8800.

Are they the same CPU? (I seem to recall not?) Do they all use the same bus? I guess what I am trying to ask is 'what are the commonalities?' (to warrant combining them).

I would be nice to get a 'thumbnail' (as the English expression goes) description of each one (the way I did with the VAX 9000 series; Antonio just cut-and-pasted a bunch of specifications for each VAX, he didn't give a description of what each machine was, in high-level terms. Jnc (talk) 17:17, 19 May 2023 (CEST)

Model number ordering

I'm wondering how we should order the model numbers in this nav box - assuming, of course, that we do develop an over-arching schema for so doing. My concern, in case it isn't obvious, is to make this nav box maximally useful to our average reader. The division into broad categories ('VAX-11/7xx', 'VAX 8000 series', 'MicroVAXen', 'VAXstation Series', 'Late Model VAXen') I am pretty happy with (but feel free to say something about that too).

I guess originally I was sort of going by the time line - so the 780 was first, then the 750, etc. But by the time one gets down to the MicroVAX 3100 and 3300, who the hell except the most hardened VAX fanatic knows what order they came out in? And if one doesn't know that (as an average reader won't), one has no choice but to scan the entire, lengthy box to find what one is looking for. Should we put them in numerical order in each group? Or stick with the temporal ordering (which is, in itself, slightly interesting info), and live with the fact that it will mean a scan?

Assuming, of course, that it makes a damn bit of difference what the order is! (And yes, yes, I know that Template:Nav PDP-11 slightly has the same issue - although it's mostly in temporal order - I'll fix it when we make up our minds about this test case.) Jnc (talk) 20:26, 13 June 2023 (CEST)