As far as I know, the VAX11/730 (There is one next to me waiting for me to have time
to restore it) has the microcode entirely in RAM. Classic PERQs (3 in the next room) have
The PDP-11 console loads the microcode from disk then mostly just sits there
looking pretty whilst the VAX runs.
The 11/780 has a PDP11 to load the microcode (I think) but the 11/730 makes do with an
8085. After booting I think that handles the console port still.
-tony