30 Jul
2016
30 Jul
'16
10:58 a.m.
On 2016-07-30 13:51, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
Hi
I'm trying to revive and old unix machine. A Concurrent Computer
Corporation series 8000. This seems to be a later version of Masscomp
MC5600/MC5700 which has a manual in bitsavers. The system runs RTU
(which I assumes means Real Time Unix).
My machine is in great condition and both SCSI disks (Seagate ST516)
seems to work fine and I've made images. But the machine panics at
boot:
---
panic: Unauthorized use of RTU
For further assistance, contact Concurrent's
Customer Service Technical Support Group
---
The NVRAM battery is long dead and upon entering the console I get a
complaint regarding the TOD clock, but I see no way of setting it.
I can boot into a "stand alone mode" but not single user. In the SAM I
can poke arround the filesystem and use "date" to set a date, but the
clock appears not to be running.
Does anyone have experience with this type of machine, either CCC or
masscomp and can offer assistance?
It's a dual MIPS machine with 16MB of memory.
/P
I know nothing about this machine in particular, but i know a decent
amount about other unix machines of the era. Chances are that the copy
of RTU on that box is licensed to the serial / id number programmed in
nvram. Because the nvram is dead, those numbers no longer match and the
OS panics from an invalid license. The TOD clock typically part of the
nvram chip and loses it's value after every reset. If i had to guess, i
would say replace the battery / nvram chip (if it's a self contained
chip like the old sun boxes) and see if you can get enough data together
to reprogram it. Whether or not the machine in question has a facility
to do that like the old sun's do i am not sure.