22 Feb
2011
22 Feb
'11
9:59 a.m.
On 2/22/2011 5:45 AM, arcarlini at iee.org wrote:
Josh Dersch [derschjo at mail.msu.edu] wrote:
Thanks -- I don't know why I didn't think to look at that in the first
place. Turns out there are diagnostic LEDs on the board (helpful!) and
they indicate "keyboard failure". This is the only compatible keyboard
I have, and I had previously been using it with my VT220, so I was
fairly sure it was working (but it's been at least a year since I last
powered it on). I dug out my VT220 and sure enough, the keyboard fails
there too...
So... problem solved, I just need to find a working keyboard :).
I think I've answered my own question for the
first one -- I
found the
V5.3 ROMs at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/DECROMs
and burned
them, successfully upgrading my KA650 to 5.3. (I made copies
of my V1.2
ROMs just in case)
The machine now definitely sees the VCB02 (it shows up under the SHOW
QBUS command) and appears to be trying to use it as a console at
startup, but is failing:
?62 2 08 FF 00 0000
P1=00000000 P2=00000000 P3=00000028 P4=201406C0
P5=00000000 P6=00000000 P7=00FF2000 P8=2004E1C2
P9=00000000 P10=20051CE0 r0=00000000 r1=00000028
r2=00000062 r3=201407A0 r4=2004E128 r5=00007F90
r6=00FF2000 r7=00000000 r8=00000000 ERF=00000180
KA650-B V5.3, VMB 2.7
Performing normal system tests.
33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25..24..23..22..21..20..19..18..
17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09..08..07..06..05..04..03..
Normal operation not possible.
Based on my investigations, the ?62 test code is the console
QDSS test,
which would point to a failure of the VCB02 in some way. Anyone know
how to decipher the test results?
The VCB02 tech manual (EK-104AA-TM-001) should
be available online. If
you cannot
find it, I'll upload it somewhere. It covers configuration and so on.
Doesn't
seem to include diagnostic output, but I did skim rather quickly. KA650-B suggests, to me, a VAXserver board. That would
(iirc) have an
effect
on OpenVMS, but I've no idea what (if any) effect it would have on the
console
ROM working (or not) with the QDSS. You might want to see if anyone has
KA650-A ROMs available.
I do remember that V1.2 was the "minimum port from a KA630", early rev
of
the KA650 console code. I had a few in the lab at DEC and they were
certainly less capable: no probing the bus or looking for devices etc.
You definitely want the later version that you now have. (For historical
purposes, it would be nice to feed your original ones back, just in case
there is a use for V1.2!)
I have made images, if anyone's looking :).
Thanks!
Josh
Antonio
arcarlini at iee.org