HaQues Why?rless Pages


DEC Microvax 3400
One day, a mate came to me with a bootload of parts. He wanted to borrow my soldering iron, as his had blown up. He said he obtained 2 old computers from the ABC and wanted to desolder some of the huge capacitors in the power supply to make a stun gun. I was interested in what they were and went to have a look, expecting to see some destroyed junk (I know him too well!). I was spun out by the sheer size of the parts and asked him about them. He said they were complete that morning and he just pulled them apart to see what he could scrounge. I think the next thing I said was something like" Theres no FUCKING way you are touching these again!", and proceeded to unload his boot. I said If I couldn't do anything with them by the end of the week, he could have 'em back and do whatever he wanted with them. He wasn't too worried as he knew my obsession with old computers. Well within 2 hours I had 2 full Microvaes sitting there and was about to plug one in and see if it worked. It powered up and sat there waiting for something. But what? I didn't have a clue. There was no place for a monitor or keyboard. The network card l;ooked promising for something, so I tried all sorts of things. Nothing... after a few hours on the net I found a bit, but nothing that helped me too much. I went to a few secondhand comutershops and asked people but they either weren't interested, didn't know or whatever. Then one day I was buying some blank CD's from a Mac shop(over $21 each then!), I happened to mention it. We were having a good chat when I mentioned a dial on the "network" card with the settings for 9600 baud etc. He said "hmm.. sounds like a serial port, not a network card" Try setting up a terminal program on your serial port and see what happens. I raced home and set it up, using a cable I made with diagrams found on the net(like a phone plug with an off centre clip). turned the computer on and on the terminal program I had >Login: man, I was stoked! a few hours later I had worked out how to boot it in various modes, copied the passwd file, ran John on it and got the passwords. It was almost a letdown to finally have accessed it, meaning the challenge was fullfilled. Here are some Pictures of the system:

DEC Microvax 3400

One day, a mate came to me with a bootload of parts. He wanted to borrow my soldering iron, as his had blown up. He said he obtained 2 old computers from the ABC and wanted to desolder some of the huge capacitors in the power supply to make a stun gun.

I was interested in what they were and went to have a look, expecting to see some destroyed junk (I know him too well!). I was spun out by the sheer size of the parts and asked him about them. He said they were complete that morning and he just pulled them apart to see what he could scrounge.

I think the next thing I said was something like" Theres no FUCKING way you are touching these again!", and proceeded to unload his boot. I said If I couldn't do anything with them by the end of the week, he could have 'em back and do whatever he wanted with them. He wasn't too worried as he knew my obsession with old computers.

Well within 2 hours I had 2 full Microvaes sitting there and was about to plug one in and see if it worked. It powered up and sat there waiting for something. But what? I didn't have a clue. There was no place for a monitor or keyboard. The network card l;ooked promising for something, so I tried all sorts of things. Nothing...

after a few hours on the net I found a bit, but nothing that helped me too much. I went to a few secondhand comutershops and asked people but they either weren't interested, didn't know or whatever.

Then one day I was buying some blank CD's from a Mac shop(over $21 each then!), I happened to mention it. We were having a good chat when I mentioned a dial on the "network" card with the settings for 9600 baud etc. He said "hmm.. sounds like a serial port, not a network card" Try setting up a terminal program on your serial port and see what happens. I raced home and set it up, using a cable I made with diagrams found on the net(like a phone plug with an off centre clip). turned the computer on and on the terminal program I had >Login: man, I was stoked!

a few hours later I had worked out how to boot it in various modes, copied the passwd file, ran John on it and got the passwords.

It was almost a letdown to finally have accessed it, meaning the challenge was fullfilled.

Here are some Pictures of the system: