VAX-11/730 and Emulex UC17 woes

Josh Dersch JoshD at LivingComputerMuseum.org
Tue May 24 14:27:35 CDT 2016


Hi all --

I'm working on restoring a VAX-11/730 at the museum and things have been going pretty well thus far.  I've been bootstrapping the console and diagnostics from simulated TU58 (images from: https://github.com/NF6X/VAX-11-730-Console-v57).  All of the TU58-based diagnostics are passing.

I'm attempting to bring up an Emulex UC17 SCSI controller for mass storage and I'm having trouble with it.  I thought I'd check with you guys to see if any of you have seen this issue or have any idea where I might be obviously going wrong before I start digging deeper into this.

The current issue is that I can't get the UC17's built in diagnostic/utility (referred to as the 'FRD' in the manual) to run.  I am following all of the steps to the letter (see the manual here http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/emulex/UC1751001-C_UC17_Dec90.pdf, pages 71-79 (section 4.5.7)) and I'm getting the right values back when examining the SA register during the process, but executing "S 80" halts after a second or so with:

?08  PC=00000298

Which is an odd way for it to halt, 08 means "No user WCS" according to the 11/730 user's guide.  

Here's the full conversation, just in case:

>>> I
>>> D/L/P F26800 80000000
>>> D/L/P F26804 80000001
>>> D/W/P FFF46A 3003
>>> E/W/P FFF46A
P 00FFF46A	0100
>>> D/W/P FFF46A 4401
>>> E/W/P FFF46A
P 00FFF46A	0400
>>> S 80

?08  PC=00000298

I've confirmed that the issue isn't with the card, I can run the FRD without issue on it, in an 11/44 we have here.

I've done my best to ensure that everything is sane on the UNIBUS; my understanding from the 11/730 manuals is that by default none of the SPC slots have the NPG wire-wrap fitted and that any empty SPC slots need to have an NPG grant card installed.  (This makes sense given how difficult the backplane is to access, it requires pulling the power supply out first.)  Just to make sure, I have double-checked that the NPG wirewrap jumper is not present on Slot 10, where the UC17 is installed.  At the moment the grant chain should be unbroken as far as I can tell, here is the current configuration:

TOP
Slot 1 -	Empty (normally RB730 option)
Slot 2- 	Empty (normally FPA option)
Slot 3-	M8390 (DAP)
Slot 4-	M8391 (MCT)
Slot 5-	M8394 (WCS)
Slot 6-	M8750 (1mb memory)
Slot 7-	M8750 (1mb memory)
Slot 8-	M8750 (1mb memory)
Slot 9-	M8750 (1mb memory)
Slot 10- Emulex UC17
Slot 11- DMF32-AA
Slot 12- M9302 terminator | G7273 grant
BOTTOM

Thanks as always for the help.
- Josh




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