18 Sep
2015
18 Sep
'15
2:38 p.m.
On 2015-09-18 15:45, tony duell wrote:
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.
The VAX-11/78x had some microcode on a floppy. Not sure if it was
required in order to run the machine, or if just a few select bits and
pieces were on that floppy. It's been way too many years since I touched
those machines. Maybe someone else will know?
The VAX-11/750 have the microcode in rom, but it has a system by which
you can patch the microcode. There is some ram, but not enough to hold
all the microcode. You you can "overwrite" selected addresses of the
microcode, and this was/is used both by VMS, Ultrix and NetBSD to fix a
few bugs in the machine.
The VAX-11/730 would have to have the microcode on TU58, as that is the
console media. Quite possible that it actually do load the microcode
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. from there at power up. I've heard that those
machine were slow in so
many ways... :-)
The VAX-86x0 machines have the microcode on the front-end RL02. All of
it. You want a copy? :-)
Johnny