23 Apr
2013
23 Apr
'13
7:43 a.m.
On Apr 23, 2013, at 10:15 AM, Mouse wrote:
Actually, it turned out that the problem was that I was plugging
the serial adaptor in upside down (it wasn't keyed and the cable
was a rainbow ribbon that did not have brown on pin 1, so oops).
I would have figured that out sooner if I hadn't still been
seeing data on the line; apparently the Tx makes enough noise on
the Rx pins (which are what you plug into if it's upside down)
to trigger valid-looking bits on the receiving UART.
The standard DEC pinout has single-ended Tx and differential Rx,
so I was pretty sure I wasn't receiving backwards. Of course,
now I'm receiving at 300 baud, which isn't a LOT better. :-)
So now I'm able to boot the VMS install CD, but it hangs after
identifying the devices and asking if they're all there. I'm
still trying to figure out what the deal is with that, though
I suspect it may have something to do with the DLV11J (4x UART)
I have in there, because it seems to identify that as 8 TU58s.
I'll try installing without that plugged in.
Just in case it rings a bell with anyone here, though, if I'm
seeing a hang after this, is there anything in particular I
should do? I'm booting a SCSI CD drive off a CQD-220, which
seems to work OK for booting, at least.
----
If any device does not show up, please take action now to make it
available.
Available device DUA0: device type RA81
Available device DUA1: device type RA82
Available device DUA2: device type RRD40
Available device MSA0: device type MW_TSV05
Available device DDA0: device type TU58
Available device DDA1: device type TU58
Available device DDB0: device type TU58
Available device DDB1: device type TU58
Available device DDC0: device type TU58
Available device DDC1: device type TU58
Available device DDD0: device type TU58
Available device DDD1: device type TU58
Enter "YES" when all needed devices are available: y
<hang, no echo from console>
- Dave
I recently
acquired a KA655-AA (MicroVAX 3800/3900 CPU) and some
appropriate RAM, and I'm having trouble grokking the console SLU
output. [...] if I'm running it without a bulkhead attached at all,
the serial speed should be 300 baud. When my terminal is running at
300, 8 bit, no parity, 1 stop bit, I get some garbage on screen but
not much more.
Have you tried the other speeds the KA630 documentation mentions? It
strikes me as possible, at least, that the KA630 interprets those
signals differently from the KA655.
The other possibility that comes to mind is that its serial output
isn't a normal single-ended RS232, but a differential pair (my memory
calls that RS432, but I don't know how accurate that is) and you've got
the wrong output pin - inverting the data line produces weeeeird data
corruption. (I know because I once made that mistake myself and was
thoroughly baffled for quite a while until I realized what was up.)