DigiBarn: Xerox network at Pathfinder Marine

The following are shots of an actual Xerox network at work in the year 2001 at Pathfinder Marine in Quebec, Canada. This is the last known functional Xerox network in the world, including 6085s, 8090 servers, 7650 scanners and 4045 printers. Thank Inge E. Scherer of Pathfinder Marine (yes, the same company that builds the Pathfinder Marine Diesel Engine,contact them at pathfinder@pathfindermarine.com). For these photos and see her description below.

Xerox1.jpg	Xerox6085.jpg
Xerox8000.jpg	Xerox8090.jpg

Inge's description of these pictures and their network

To give you an idea we took the attached pictures with our "cheap" camera.

This is the Xerox XPIW station with 7650 scanner, the others are identified. Better pictures (with our super-duper camera) to follow including GV on Windows or of whatever else you would like that we have. Such as the 820-II with Diablo printer, Kurzweil reading machine, 860, Xerox 80 and 300 removable disk drives, Server Routers etc. All is in working condition and is being exercised whenever we have the time. Then there is the full library for all the products (we are a strong believer in having manuals for everything!). We also have the "Bounty Boards (which we do not use) for Xerox GlobalView for the PC with software and manuals. We like GV for windows better. At one time we worked on the Xerox 6500 (Sparc IPX). That is the one thing we are missing and would not mind having one. We have the software and manuals. GV also runs on our Laptops.

With our 26 6085 stations including the XPIW with the 7650 scanners (3), 3 x 8090 servers with expansion cabinets, 8 x 8000 servers, 6 x 2700 Network laser printers, 6 x 4045 printers, we are probably the largest remaining functioning Xerox Network in the world. We have learned secrets and how to go about things to keep everything going and the dreaded Y2K did not phase us one bit. To keep our network going we are however looking for help. We need SCSI disk drives for the 8090 (Siemens 2300 or whatever was specified by Xerox) and Quantum Q2040 (42MB) as spares for the 8000 servers. We had purchased SCSI-1 drives but cannot get them to work (a SCSI is a SCSI? apparently not when it comes to Xerox). Any information what the configuration should be, would help. These service/diagnostic books we do not have.

We stumbled upon the ViewPoint program "ViewCards" in 1991. We were absolutely amazed and intrigued. Of course us being technical people we had to use it for just that, something technical and in 1991 we produced the complete disassembly of a Diesel Locomotive with this program (ii was in our opinion HTML in it's finest). Xerox Palo Alto People stormed our Company and went into shock! They saw an immense opportunity for them with what we had created but it was too late. Someone up in the Xerox heaven had decided the fate ... the rest is history. The Palo Alto people were very familiar with our product.

Comments from virtual visitor Matthew Krywonos (May 3, 2006)

I must take slight issue with your comment at [this page]...

regarding "This is the last known functional Xerox network in the world, including 6085s, 8090 servers, 7650 scanners and 4045 printers." Within the past month, I have been overseeing the takedown of our XNS (Xerox Network System) LAN in Webster, NY. The network had been kept alive for software support of the Xerox DocuTech 135 network printer which has had as much history as the PC for Xerox. Please also note that I have been aware of you're site for quite some time with the plan to hopefuilly donate material to you. As you might expect, there's quite a bit of bureaucracy I'll need to go through, but I intend to try.

Thanks for recognizing Xerox's history and impacts.

Matthew Krywonos
Xerox Corporation

From Curator Bruce Damer (May 3, 2006)

Matthew, thank you so much for your correction. I guess I should have specified that it was the last 6085 network running out at a customer. Yes indeed we have a community of people out here in the Bay Area who are really into 6085 and the Xerox networks so yes, if you have some some material to donate we are very supportive of that. Do you have any photos of your network and systems I could post on the DigiBarn site?

Perchance to you have anything in your archives from Star or earlier (Alto, Dorado?). This is a major focus I have here at the DigiBarn. I know Webster had a full set of PARC stuff at one time.

And a repy from Matthew (May 3, 2006)

...Another point you might find interesting is that in 1999, we indeed did find file server issues that needed a remedy. We actually went to Japan, evaluated, and ultimately purchased a solution that Fuji Xerox developed for us. It ran a customized version of Japanese GVWin on Windows 98, and these servers were also just off lined last month. The Xerox Service Software Centre in Singapore has been our development group and ran the other local XNS network. Because of the frame relay network owned by AT&T being drastically changed, Singapore also developed an IP Tunneling program that allowed us to transfer XNS packets between our two locations and unwrap them back into native XNS.

Know anything more about this system? Contact us!

See Also:

The Digibarn's extensive collection of Xerox computers and other artifacts