test-drb May 2013

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

213 participants
253 discussions

by cctech＠beyondthepale.ie

> Ah, OK. So I get some PUA0: errors ticking up every so often, most > of which are right after the system has had some "hiccup" of non- > interactivity for several minutes. Some initial research indicates > that the PU device is the UDA controller, which is what I believe > the CQD-220 masquerades as (more or less). Right now, after three > hours of sitting basically idle, it's logged 26 errors. > > So I'll have to check that out. It could be something as simple as > balky SCSI termination, since I do have 4 devices in the chain and > the terminator is a Jaz drive using internal termination. I'll > play with it some. Hopefully it's not the hard drive going bad, > since my supply of SCSI drives is essentially dry. It's a bit > worrisome that it's the PU device going bad rather than the DU > device, but I'm not 100% sure how VMS logs the errors, so it could > be what I suspect. > VMS has a process called ERRFMT which logs errors in a binary file called sys$errorlog:errlog.sys - the way to get a detailed human readable report of the contents of that file used to be ANALYZE /ERROR but I don't think that works any more. Maybe someone else can chime in and suggest what the current way is. Keep an eye out also for operator messages relating to the PU and DU devices after doing a REPLY /ENABLE, SET TERMINAL, SET BROADCAST etc. Regards, Peter Coghlan.

11 years, 7 months

uVAX 3900 out to lunch after inactivity

by cctech＠beyondthepale.ie

> > With VAX/VMS, having lots of physical memory is neither necessary nor > > sufficient. More important is how the virtual memory system is configured. > > Perhaps you are low on pagefile space or non-paged pool or something like > > that? > > I was musing on this while reviewing the install manual and it does > mention that at least 24 MB physical memory is necessary for TCP/IP > 5.1. I don't know how hard and fast that is, but it's possible that > the changes I made to the pool allocation per the manual have > destabilized the system. Since I don't have much running on there, > I've reinstalled from scratch to see if I have the same problem with > no TCP/IP installed/running. > I would worry more about DECWindows needing large amounts of memory rather than TCP/IP but having said that, I've always used Multinet rather than TCP/IP services so I don't know a lot about it. I suspect the manual is saying that a typical workload on a more capable VAX than an MVII would need 24 MB for good performance. I think you should be able to get by with rather less memory than that, particularly if you don't have a graphics card. It should not be necessary to reinstall to see the effect of not running TCP/IP services. Just comment out the command to start it (probably in sys$manager:systartup_vms.com) and reboot. Regards, Peter Coghlan.

11 years, 7 months

I have these ideas about how to document file formats

by tlindner＠macmess.org

For about seven years I have been writing code to document file formats. The first time I wrote something about it is here: http://tlindner.macmess.org/?p=56 <-- warning, a little rambling. Then a few years later I wrote a program called Blocks, here are some screen casts I made about it: http://tlindner.macmess.org/?page_id=311 Then a few years later I wrote Streams <https://github.com/tlindner/Stream/wiki>. I've been poking at it for a while. I've made two screen casts to show it off as well: http://www.macmess.org/downloads/StreamEditing.m4v <-- made about a year ago. http://www.macmess.org/downloads/Stream_Screen_Cast.mp4 <-- very recent. It's way past time to get some feed back. So for others who are interested in this sort of thing, what do you think? -- tim lindner

11 years, 7 months

Older IBM RS/6000 RAM available

by mbbrutman-cctalk＠brutman.com

I thought I was going to acquire an RS/6000 so I started buying spare parts. Plans changed ... Let me know if you need P/N 68X6356 (FRU 70F9976) which are 8MB SIMMs or P/N 32G8212 which are 16MB SIMMs. These came in a 'Bag O' Memory' so they are untested, but they were properly stored. They are not free - shipping cost and beer money will do fine though. Mike

11 years, 7 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 117, Issue 8

by elson＠pico-systems.com

Date: Sat, 4 May 2013 22:04:38 -0400 From: David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: uVAX 3900 out to lunch after inactivity Message-ID: <0315AF5D-BB77-464C-9BD6-FE312DDCE21A at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The long saga of making my recent KA655 acquisition work continues! It's been mostly smooth sailing since I got a decent Plextor drive, but there's one persistent problem. Under VMS 7.3, after a longish period of inactivity (I've seen it after a few hours, but I've not been able to narrow it down beyond that), it seems to just kind of go out to lunch. VMS is still *running*... if I have a Telnet session running MONITOR, the clock will still update and the activity meters still move (a little; they show very little activity, but that's expected since there's not a lot going on on the machine yet). But if I terminate MONITOR (it responds interactively to ctrl-C, etc) and try to run anything else (say, HELP), it stops responding. Other terminals are totally unresponsive. If I try to open a Telnet session, TCP connects but no other traffic happens. This also happens if I turn TCP/IP off. I'm running with 16 MB RAM, which should be enough for a machine that's not really running much yet, and if I were having memory issues I would expect things like existing MONITOR sessions to have serious problems. If anyone has any idea what might be going on here, I'm all ears. I have seen this behavior a number of times when the disk has gone offline for some reason. I'm not sure there is a simple way to tell when the drive can no longer be accessed. Obviously, there will be no error logging of the condition, except that VMS may write some buffered error messages on the next boot that may offer a clue. Jon

11 years, 7 months

uVAX 3900 out to lunch after inactivity

by cctech＠beyondthepale.ie

> > The long saga of making my recent KA655 acquisition work > continues! It's been mostly smooth sailing since I got > a decent Plextor drive, but there's one persistent problem. > Under VMS 7.3, after a longish period of inactivity (I've > seen it after a few hours, but I've not been able to > narrow it down beyond that), it seems to just kind of go > out to lunch. VMS is still *running*... if I have a > Telnet session running MONITOR, the clock will still update > and the activity meters still move (a little; they show > very little activity, but that's expected since there's not > a lot going on on the machine yet). But if I terminate > MONITOR (it responds interactively to ctrl-C, etc) and try > to run anything else (say, HELP), it stops responding. > Other terminals are totally unresponsive. If I try to > open a Telnet session, TCP connects but no other traffic > happens. > > This also happens if I turn TCP/IP off. I'm running with > 16 MB RAM, which should be enough for a machine that's not > really running much yet, and if I were having memory issues > I would expect things like existing MONITOR sessions to > have serious problems. > > The only other correlation I can think of is that this > seems to happen most when I've just installed a layered > product, so it could have something to do with the CD > still being mounted. On the other hand, I tend to leave > the machine alone and unattended for long periods of time > for product installs, so correlation is necessarily not > very trustworthy here. > > I can still issue a break from the terminal and boot again > from the console firmware, so that still seems fine. > > If anyone has any idea what might be going on here, I'm > all ears. > Do either of: $ REPLY /ENABLE $ SHOW ERROR show up any problems? You might need: $ SET TERMINAL /BROADCAST and/or $ SET BROADCAST=ALL with REPLY /ENABLE if you are doing this on the console and something has disabled broadcasts on the console. In older versions of VMS, $ ANALYZE /ERROR used to be very useful for spotting behind-the-scenes hardware problems and worked straight out of the box but it was replaced in later versions (on Alpha at least - I'm not sure about VAX) by $ DIAGNOSE /TRANSLATE which required extra software to be installed and possibly licensed first. I lost track of what happened after that but I think that was replaced again by something else equally difficult to make use of :-( Your disk could be going to sleep but it seems unlikely that it would recover by just halting and rebooting the system. With VAX/VMS, having lots of physical memory is neither necessary nor sufficient. More important is how the virtual memory system is configured. Perhaps you are low on pagefile space or non-paged pool or something like that? Use $ SHOW MEMORY /FILES to check how much free pagefile space you have. $ SHOW MEMORY /POOL /FULL will give a vast number of figures. If "Free space" is low and "Current size" is much bigger than "Initial size" and approaching "Maximum size", you may be running into problems with non-paged pool. If there are no hardware problems, an AUTOGEN might well help. For best results, it should be done after whatever activity that might have used up resources but it's obviously no good if the machine stops responding in the middle of the AUTOGEN procedure. Tell AUTOGEN to save feedback and use it when calculating new system parameters. It will complain that the machine wasn't up for 24 hours but tell it to do it anyway. $ @SYS$UPDATE:AUTOGEN HELP for further details. Regards, Peter Coghlan.

11 years, 7 months

uVAX 3900 out to lunch after inactivity

by PETER＠beyondthepale.ie

> > Do either of: > > > > $ REPLY /ENABLE > > $ SHOW ERROR > > > > show up any problems? You might need: > > > > $ SET TERMINAL /BROADCAST > > > > and/or > > > > $ SET BROADCAST=ALL > > > > with REPLY /ENABLE if you are doing this on the console and something has > > disabled broadcasts on the console. > > Any of these would probably be great, but I should probably be a little > more clear; it's not really responding at all to input after I respond > to a prompt. After the carriage return, it just sits there and doesn't > even echo anything, though as I mentioned, anything running elsewhere > (like MONITOR) still seems to keep going. > It's me who should have been clearer. Do the REPLY /ENABLE and friends before the problem shows up in the hope of seeing a message giving details about the problem when it does show up. You might see something like "Mount verification is in progress." for example. Do the SHOW ERROR anytime and if anything (other than a tape drive, terminal or any sort of virtual device) shows a non-zero error count, investigate the reason for it. Particularly watch for MEMORY or CPU errors. If your disk device starts clocking errors just before the system stalls, that would tend to point the finger in its direction. $ SHOW SYSTEM is the one command I know of that will usually execute when almost all others fail for reasons of resource starvation. Using it to look at what states processes are in will give clues about what resources they might be waiting for. > > $ SHOW MEMORY /POOL /FULL > > > > will give a vast number of figures. If "Free space" is low and "Current size" > > is much bigger than "Initial size" and approaching "Maximum size", you may be > > running into problems with non-paged pool. > > The free space numbers seem fine and always have, but I haven't run > it while doing something like an install. I'll have to try that. > The pool space numbers don't seem terribly large, but I'm not quite > sure what nominal ones are. The numbers will vary depending on your hardware and configuration. What matters is that that "Free space" is not approaching zero when "Current size" is already as big as "Maximum size" which means there is no scope for further automatic expansion of the pool size. If you have plenty of free space, you are ok. If you don't have any free space but "Current size" is less than "Maximum size", you are still ok. Another approach to this sort of thing is to crash the system when it becomes unresponsive and analyse the resultant crash dump afterwards. Probably easier to try the AUTOGEN first though. Regards, Peter Coghlan.

11 years, 7 months

Available S-100 PCBs

by LYNCHAJ＠YAHOO.COM

Hi! Here is an update on available S-100 board PCBs! I've sent out many of the PCBs and they are almost gone. There are 21 of the S-100 IDE V2 reorder PCBs and 2 of the new S-100 bus terminator/prototyping board PCBs. There are 2 of the S-100 LAVA PCBs available. http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/IDE%20Board/My%20IDE%20Card.htm http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=S-100%20bus%20t erminator http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/Lava-10%20Board/LAVA-10%20Board .htm The S-100 PCBs cost the same as before ($20 each).? However due to unforeseen extreme price increases in shipping by USPS I am forced to change shipping costs. Shipping in the US will be $3 for a single PCB and $2 for each additional PCB.? Shipping internationally will be $10 for a single PCB and $3 for each additional PCB.? This is for the bare basics USPS first class postage with no tracking or insurance.? The builder assumes all risk of delivery as per usual arrangement. I apologize for the large price increase on shipping but this is out of my hands.? The USPS is in dire financial trouble and is raising prices on shipping.? It affects us all and is most unfortunate.? These boards are provided "at cost" so there is no margin to absorb any shipping price increases.? I have to pass them along. If you would like one or more S-100 PCBs please send a PayPal to LYNCHAJ at YAHOO.COM Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

11 years, 7 months

Downsizing - many systems available

by dave13＠dunfield.com

WOW - a lot of response in just 1/2 day! Just a few notes to clear up a few things: I am NOT "giving away" the collection - I will no doubt give away some parts of it, but I know local (to me) collectors who will take those bits, so please only ask for freebies if you are very close to Ottawa, Ontario. It also doesn't do much good to ask me "how much do you want for xxx" as I really don't know, as I have never made a point of placing values on the items in the collection - better to let me know what it is worth to you. Ultimately any particular item will go to whomever places the highest offer, or in some cases places where I know the particular bit of equipment will do the most good or have beneficial effect. At present I am planning to keep at least one of the Altairs, the Imsai, the Vector, the Horizon, the H8. one of the "chicklet" Pet 2001s the VLC VAX, the D6809 (or course) and a probably couple of others I have not decided on ***. *** I'll willing to entertain offers on these systems, but don't expect them to be cheap - I'm just as happy to hang on to them. I'm not keen to ship - I know this lets out many (most) of you, but preference will definately be given to people who can arrange pickup or take care of most of the shipping hassles remotely. In particular, I can't easily tell you what shipping will cost - most of this stuff is heavy, and it is a lot of work to pack something, measure it, weigh it and get a quote - which will likely be too high (as you all know, much of this stuff isn't worth the cost to ship). I'm happy to work with you to figure out ways to get things to you - perhaps piggybacking transport on someone already planning to come here etc.. (You might be able to coordinate such things through the list as well). Thanks, Dave -- dave13 (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield System/Firmware development services: www.dunfield.com (dot) com Classic computers: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield

11 years, 7 months

RSX-11Mplus boot SAV -- Cannot find Home Block on fpga pdp2011

by cclist＠sytse.net

I've long thought that my pdp2011 would run just about anything pdp11. However, it was recently brought to my attention that RSX-11Mplus will not boot from an rp06 disk image. I mean, an rp06 image created on simh, based on the rd54 image in rsx11mpbl87.dsk.bz2, sysgenned to support rp06 drives, and working without any problem on simh. The first steps in the boot on the fpga appear to work fine - several reads are done, and the first message appears: "RSX-11M-PLUS V4.6 BL87 1024.KW System:"RSXMPL". So far exactly the same as when I run simh on the same image. However, after a brief pause in which the cpu is busy, a difference appears: simh will continue with a few reads and finish the boot process; however, my fpga will start reading sectors from each cylinder of the disk in ascending order - ie, beginning at cyl 0 and ending at the last one. When at the last cylinder, the message "SAV -- Cannot find Home Block" appears. Strangely, if I google that, it comes up with a reference to Ersatz-11 from 1994 which appears to describe exactly the same behaviour - only then on RL, apparently. See ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/pub/PDP-11/Sims/Ersatz-1.1beta/Old/e11beta.txt I've spent most of my free time last week chewing on this problem, looking at many details in my controller vhdl. However, I've not come any closer to a solution. At this point, I'm not even completely sure that the problem actually is in the controller - since E11 had the same thing in it's RL, and that is a completely different thing. So, I'm hoping that someone on this list can help me understand what the trigger(s) for the "SAV -- Cannot find Home Block" could be. Is there maybe someone who remembers the original issue in E11, and how it was fixed? Or is there someone with access to the source code who could explain what happens?

11 years, 7 months

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test-drb May 2013