test-drb October 2000

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

184 participants
568 discussions

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: healyzh(a)aracnet.com <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> > >Beware, I found that it was painful to run Netscape on a Tru64 system with >96MB. Tru64 seems to be even more of a memory pig than OpenVMS. VMS isn't a memory pig. Alpha however was aimed at big apps and isn't as byte efficient as VAX so it tends to consume 2x-4x the ram. The design goal of Alpha was big address space for even bigger apps like gigabyte or even terabyte sized databases. A VAX with 64-128 mb is a big (memory wise) machine. Besides 7.2 runs just fine in the MVII with 9mb! Allison

23 years, 9 months

Entertainment Value

by jpl15＠panix.com

Yet-to-be-plundered Jerry Springer Topics: Upright Vintage Computer Collector is secretly an E-Bay Slut and once sold a Royal McBee to the highest bidder: a scrapper from Taiwan. London-based Enthusiast and Under-Employed Physicist admits to converting all his Classics to 110 VAC 60Htz and using a hidden rotary inverter in his basement. Discovered after neighbors complained to police about the incessant humming, and late night cries of "It Lives!!! It Lives!!!" Ex VCF Promoter and Producer gives up profitable consulting business, salty wit and caustic repartee, to take up new carreer as a Sunday School Teacher and Spiritual Counsellor in the Great Midwest. You *GO*, girlfr'en! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Cheers John

23 years, 9 months

IBM Series/1 Minicomputer

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

Owen Robertson <univac2(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > Shipping for the hard disk will be hundreds, so I won't be getting it. To which Sellam Ismail <foo(a)siconic.com> replied: > Have you considered driving to go pick it up? Have you considered having > another list member retrieve the hard drive? Sellam, that needs to be list members. I walked away from several of them a while back. Stuck on the front of the drive assembly is a sticker that says to the effect "Caution: Unit weighs 156 pounds". Heavy metal, ey? Mike

23 years, 9 months

DSSI: What was it like?

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

Bruce Lane <kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com> wrote: > For that matter, what the heck did DSSI abbreviate? My guess: > Distributed Storage Subsystem Interface. To which Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com> replied: > As for the abbreviation DSSI I've heard two different expansions used: > "Digital Standard Storage Interconnect" > "Digital Standard System Interconnect" > I've yet to find something that pins it down definitively. DEC lists in the manuals for both the DECsystem 5400 and the DECsystem 5500 as: "Digital Storage System Interconnect" and states: The DSSI bus has the following characteristics: A 4-Mbytes-per-second bandwidth Up to eight nodes Eight data lines One Parity line Eight control lines And gleened from somewhere a long time ago: One person wrote: :DSSI was developed from early SCSI definitions in an attempt to make :it robust, reliable and versatile (e.g. dual host option was defined :from the very beginning, while many of today's SCSI controllers still :can cope with only a single host adapter per bus). :The additional features made it more expensive then SCSI, and the :industry decided to go with the cheaper solution. Another person wrote: :> Are the two inter-changeable??? (SCSI vs DSSI) :No. It's interesting, though, that there were vendors whose storage :controllers had host ports that were software configurable as either :DSSI or SCSI. I never got close enough to one of these to find out :if they used the same signal wiring, though [most likely not - it is :conceivable that logic levels were compatible enough that one could :use the same line drivers and receivers, but they would still have had :to have a way to choose connectors that matched the interface type]. FWIW Mike

23 years, 9 months

Microvax II

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine(a)idirect.com> >Actually, since I am not a VAX/VMS person, I was thinking more along >the lines of a PDP-11 and RT-11. But since I know that a Qbus host >adapter such as a CMD 220/M (CMD) and a SQ706A (Dialog) both >function for either PDP-11 CPUs or uVAX II CPUs on any OS which >uses the MSCP interface, I guess that I am too out of touch with the >problems of what an IDE Qbus controller might have difficulty with. The key is MSCP is not a trivial protocal and the underlying hardware to do that requires muscle in the form of a fast cpu. IDE is fairly stupid and easy to interface as PIO, DMA would not be that bad for vax or PDP11 but you would pay for it by needing drivers as there are none. >And in particular, I was sort of referring to using an IDE Qbus controller >with John Wilson's adaptation of the Russian HD(X).SYS that he has >so conveniently made available in E11. There has been some discussion >about producing an IDE/SCSI version of a Qbus controller which would >be able to be a REAL Qbus PDP-11 controller with an RT-11 software >device driver identical in code to the HD(X).SYS used with the E11 I think I was part of that discussion too. RT-11 and the overlay TSX-11 are easy compared to something like VMS. Unix sources permitting would be doable. >Anyone out there who wants to try? I would be very pleased to >swap some of my time for a couple of SCSI 32 GByte hard drives >to test out the software. The only problem is that the only SCSI >host adapters I have are the 50 pin type (CQD 220/M), so there I've run my PDP11 with SCSI CQD already as it's MSCP, Same for VAX/VMS (it's in my MVII). It's limited to 4 or 8gb and SCSI-II so forget the reall monster drives. >might be a problem if there are no drives larger than 8 Gbytes which >have the old SCSI-2 50 pin interface. On the other hand, if Its pretty easy to fine drives inthe 2-9gb range still and they are cheap. The idea of such huge drive with RT11 and friends is that is wasted. I use D540s (31mb) and swap them like carts as I have a bunch of em and they are plenty big enough. Drives in the 120-400MB range are plentyful for me, one 200mb drive would take all the binaries and sources I have with room to spare that aren't already on Tims CD. Whats the point? The value of IDE on Qbus is cheap easy to find drives in the sub (at the time) 1gb class. Allison

23 years, 9 months

Changing logicals on VMS?

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

Hi Paul, This isn't an allocation class issue. Its something I brought on myself, and for that am paying the price :-). My true question is whether or not I'm going to be stuck re-installing VMS, however given the way VMS works I'm sure there is some voodoo to fix it. I got in this mess as follows: I installed an RF72 drive into my 4000/200 and proceeded to do a 'sho dev' on it. It showed up on the DSSI bus as $24$DIA264: I then installed VMS 7.2 on to this drive, followed by a bunch of layered products. Then I read in the KA660 technical manual how to "talk" to the DSSI drives, (which is very arcane using the KFQSA but a snap on the KA640 and KA660) and proceeded to tell the drive to call itself node SYSTEM and unit 0. This worked fine, and I noted that I could now boot the system by specifying DIA0: rather than DIA264: (which I never could remember anyway). Then I went to install another layered product. That installation failed because it couldn't find a file is was expecting in SYS$SYSDEVICE:[SY0.SYSTEMP] (or something very similar). So I did a dir SYS$SYSDEVICE: and sure enough there was nothing there, then I did a SHOW LOGICALS and from there discovered that SYS$SYSDEVICE: was defined to be $24$DIA264: (the original name of the DSSI drive) Now I could name it back again. But I'd rather tell VMS where the SYSDEVICE now sits (for all the system, like on a permanent basis). If I 'define' it, it changes for the current process but doesn't change universally and more importantly other things are stuck that way to. Nothing is SYSTARTUP_VMS.COM defines these so they must be in a parameter database somewhere else. That is where I'm looking now ... On a somewhat related note, I went out and forked over $100 for a true 5 port switch so that I can put my VLC cluster on a switch! Now all I need is a console multiplexor. --Chuck At 08:35 PM 10/2/00 -0500, you wrote: >The system$dia0 isn't especially newer or better. It is the name of the >disk with the allocation class set to 0. Check your drive firmware to >make sure that the alloclass on that disk didn't get changed to 24 wen you >changed the node name. > >There is also a MSCP_ALLOCLASS parameter in SYSGEN but that is less likely >to be the culprit. > >The allocation class is a mechanism to prevent like-named devices (i.e. >machines on a CI or DSSI each with a DxAxxx device) from confusing one >another. > > On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Chuck McManis wrote: > > > I know, I should ask info-vax. But I'm not subscribed there :-( > > > > I changed the nodename on my DSSI drive (looks like an HSC50 to the VAX) > > and it still boots VMS but SYS$SYSDEVICE is set to $24$DIA264 not the > > newer, more friendly SYSTEM$DIA0: I tried doing an autogen but that didn't > > seem to change anything :-). Clues? > > > > --Chuck > > >

23 years, 9 months

Intel 310 286 box

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> We still have about 4 of these 310's in operation here which we are in the > process of retiring. But, unlike Pats, ours run the iRMX OS. There wasan active > user group for these (iRUG ?) but don't know if its still a functioning > group. Always wanted an iRMX-based system... Do these 310s have their retirement mapped out already? regards, -dq

23 years, 9 months

Who collects (reads the mailing list...?) vintage computers in Quebec, Canada?

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Claude <claudew(a)sprint.ca> >I have yet to find anybody to trade or talk collecting face-to-face >anywhere around here even if I have posted on several montreal >newsgroups that I am looking to buy/trade this kinda stuff... I find that rather unusual. In the 80s I used to call on companies in Montreal and there were a lot of them in the small computer market. More than likely there are other collectors and your entering late on the scene. Computers are tough to find here (not like california...) I have managed >to accumulate/fix/restore approx 50 micros (all working) from the >197x-198x early 1990's...lotta books, software and peripherals... 1980x oh you mean recent stuff. ;) I have a handful of machines I really like to use from the 70's. Just got some core for my PDP-8/F that should be old enough. >Those who feel sad for me can send me their Lisa's, TRS model IIIs and >Next boxes ;-> No intrest in those. Allison

23 years, 9 months

Need help or service manual for RS COCO mini disk 26-3022...

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Claude <claudew(a)sprint.ca> >These are the 1st floppy disks for the COCO made by RS. The units are >TEC FB-201. > >Large full size mounted on their side in silver case with power supply. > >When dskinit (format) command issued, they go about 35 tracks then an >error is reported on the COCO screen. You sure it isn't the first drives for the TRS-80? The symptom would be the older SA400 drives designed for 35 track operation used within. The later drives were SA400Ls that were designed for 40 track operation. Both used the spiral groove cam but one was a bit different. Open up the box and see which you have. The other possibility is old (really old) media ment for the 35 track drives and this media has a smaller "window" in the jacket that will limit head travel. >They can't read a disk formatted on a good drive. That suggests teh head follower is out of the groove or the stepper has been rotated or other wear probems. >These drives use a plastic disc with a "spiral" grove stuck to the >stepper motor shaft to step the head along. I have seen this in Apple II >drives, it seemed reliable...but I have been told these RS drives were >not really realiable... SA400 drives were very poor over time for reliability. You would need an alignment disk to set it up or lot of trial and error assuming the head moves freely on it guide rails. Allison

23 years, 9 months

PDP-8 question...

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>> nothing in it) and a set of three posts one dip above it. If you >> could tell me what you have there it would help. > >Will do. The 8/e is on my desk at work, so I'll email the info on monday, >if I forget, then remind me. Thanks. I plan to power it up as is along to see where it sits. I was told it was likely good but untested. Certainly looks good though it has been repaired at one time. Allison

23 years, 9 months

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test-drb October 2000