I just got a 16700A mainframe today, with 2x 16557D cards.
It passes all self-tests and appears to work fine. No visible corrosion on the bottom of the cards near the plastic stiffeners yet so I am busy removing the hardened foam residue. I have done 1 board so far, didn't break anything and it still passes tests.
The machine is running version 1.50 of the LA software, and that will not be sufficient for an incoming trio of 16752B cards.
I have gotten the software ISO for version 2.90 from archive.org but now I need a CDROM to install.
External SCSI CDROMs on ebay are crazy expensive at the moment.
Is there a way to connect an internal SCSI drive temporarily and boot from that just for the reinstall?
and if so, do I need a 50 pin or a 68 pin internal drive?
Edit :
I see 2 50 pin connectors on the PCI board, can they both be used? Is that what they did in the 16702B?
Anybody actually reinstalled that way before?