15 May
2012
15 May
'12
8:46 p.m.
Anyone here interested in a PCI-based IBM P/390 board (Not E)? I've actually got two
that I'm not using, and a PARCA
bus-and-tag board, and think that some other hobbyists should have a chance to acquire
this stuff...
I'd also consider trades...
Thanks!
15 May
15 May
10:44 p.m.
On 05/15/2012 08:46 PM, Benjamin Huntsman wrote:
Anyone here interested in a PCI-based IBM P/390 board
(Not E)? I've actually got two that I'm not using, and a PARCA
bus-and-tag board, and think that some other hobbyists should have a chance to acquire
this stuff...
Yes, I'm interested. I have an MCA version (running) and a PCI P390/E
(not running).
I'd also consider trades...
In light of our other recent conversation, I think we have some things
to discuss.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
16 May
16 May
7:15 a.m.
On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Benjamin Huntsman
<BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> wrote:
Anyone here interested in a PCI-based IBM P/390 board
(Not E)? ?I've actually got two that I'm not using, and a PARCA
bus-and-tag board, and think that some other hobbyists should have a chance to acquire
this stuff...
Interesting. Do you need OS/2 on the host machine for this card to function?
--
Regards,
Torfinn Ingolfsen
17 May
17 May
5:19 a.m.
You need specific models of machines for the card to be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time
since I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
Jim
On 5/16/2012 4:15 AM, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote:
On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Benjamin Huntsman
<BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> wrote:
Anyone here interested in a PCI-based IBM P/390
board (Not E)? I've actually got two that I'm not using, and a PARCA
bus-and-tag board, and think that some other hobbyists should have a chance to acquire
this stuff...
Interesting. Do you need OS/2 on the host machine for this card to
function? 
9:31 a.m.
You need specific models of machines for the card to
be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time
since I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
I wonder if it would work on the Apple Network Server then. What were the
steps?
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Prediction is very difficult, especially ... about the future. -- Niels Bohr
5:58 p.m.
On 05/17/2012 09:31 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
I just dug into this a bit, as I noticed I wasn't remembering most of
the process. I unzipped the install package and looked through it a bit.
The R390 distribution contains drivers for AIX 4.1.1, 4.2.1, and
4.3.1. Sridhar and I used the latter to get it running under 4.3.3 (I
think) on an RS/6000 model 397. (a beautiful machine by itself!)
This will work with an MCA P/390, a PCI P/390, or a PCI P/390E. You
need the LIC disk (or disk image) to get it running. This is tough to
find, but it's "around". Again
The software itself is simply a big AIX "installp" package.
Installing it is a piece of cake.
Note that this is all completely independent of whatever (standard,
unmodified) S/390 OS you intend to run on the resultant S/390 system, be
it VM, OS/390, VSE, Linux, etc.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
You need
specific models of machines for the card to be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time
since I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
I wonder if it would work on the Apple Network Server then. What were the
steps?
7:47 p.m.
I suppose I should have mentioned that the ones I'm offering for sale come with the
requisite driver
and LIC diskettes... Obtaining a copy of OS/2 or AIX 4.3 isn't terribly difficult...
I'd been told that
it's licensed such that if you own one of the boards you're entitled to the
LIC...
As for getting an S/390 OS... good luck.
-Ben
18 May
18 May
3:28 a.m.
On 18/05/2012 00:47, Benjamin Huntsman wrote:
I suppose I should have mentioned that the ones
I'm offering for sale come with the requisite driver
and LIC diskettes... Obtaining a copy of OS/2 or AIX 4.3 isn't terribly difficult...
I'd been told that
it's licensed such that if you own one of the boards you're entitled to the
LIC...
As for getting an S/390 OS... good luck.
I believe that the P/390 will run in S/370 mode and there are several
free OS's for S/370 around.
There are also a few options for real 390 code. There is a freely
downloadable copy of MUSIC and MTS was also recently released into the
public domain.
I would expect these to IPL on a P/390 but MTS might need tweaking for
printer support.
Older releases of zLinux should work.
-Ben
10:10 a.m.
How many do you have and how much are you asking?
-Bob
bbrown at harpercollege.edu ####? #### Bob Brown - KB9LFR
Harper Community College ##? ##? ## Supervisor of Operations
Palatine IL USA????????? ####? #### Saved by grace
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf
Of Benjamin Huntsman
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 6:48 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: IBM P/390
I suppose I should have mentioned that the ones I'm offering for sale come with the
requisite driver
and LIC diskettes... Obtaining a copy of OS/2 or AIX 4.3 isn't terribly difficult...
I'd been told that
it's licensed such that if you own one of the boards you're entitled to the
LIC...
As for getting an S/390 OS... good luck.
-Ben
17 May
17 May
7:54 p.m.
I wonder if it
would work on the Apple Network Server then. What were the
steps?
I just dug into this a bit, as I noticed I wasn't remembering most of
the process. I unzipped the install package and looked through it a bit.
The R390 distribution contains drivers for AIX 4.1.1, 4.2.1, and
4.3.1. Sridhar and I used the latter to get it running under 4.3.3 (I
think) on an RS/6000 model 397. (a beautiful machine by itself!)
This will work with an MCA P/390, a PCI P/390, or a PCI P/390E. You
need the LIC disk (or disk image) to get it running. This is tough to
find, but it's "around". Again
The software itself is simply a big AIX "installp" package.
Installing it is a piece of cake.
Note that this is all completely independent of whatever (standard,
unmodified) S/390 OS you intend to run on the resultant S/390 system, be
it VM, OS/390, VSE, Linux, etc. 
24 May
24 May
8:56 p.m.
Are these already sold? If not, I'd be interested.
I have a PS/2 8595 (i.e., Model 95) that maybe it would work in?
(Anybody know for sure?)
On 5/17/2012 8:17 PM, Benjamin Huntsman wrote:
Who had this
390 card again? :)
I did... at least the two for sale. Sounds like several folks
on this list have them, though...
I wouldn't be surprised if you could get it running on your ANS. The fact that you
have an ANS is pretty cool, too!!
-Ben
17 May
17 May
7:54 p.m.
On 5/17/12 4:58 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 05/17/2012 09:31 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
I just dug into this a bit, as I noticed I wasn't remembering most of
the process. I unzipped the install package and looked through it a bit.
The R390 distribution contains drivers for AIX 4.1.1, 4.2.1, and
4.3.1. Sridhar and I used the latter to get it running under 4.3.3 (I
think) on an RS/6000 model 397. (a beautiful machine by itself!)
Dave knows this, I'm sure, but for the record, the AIX kernel was
completely rewritten between v5.0 and v5.1, and a *lot* of legacy
support was dropped. It's not surprising that the P/390 code won't run
in 5.1.
This begs the question "What about AIX 5?"
Trust me, just run 4.3.3. :)
Doc
You need
specific models of machines for the card to be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time
since I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
I wonder if it would work on the Apple Network Server then. What were the
steps? 
10:15 a.m.
jim s wrote:
You need specific models of machines for the card to
be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time since
I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
It actually pretty much works behind any PC that can run OS/2 and has a
secondary PCI bus behind any of several specific models of PCI-PCI bridge.
It also works just fine on AIX 4.3.3, but when Dave McGuire and I were
hacking on it last time, we couldn't get the code to work on 5.1.
Peace... Sridhar
On 5/16/2012 4:15 AM, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote:
> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Benjamin Huntsman
> <BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> wrote:
>> Anyone here interested in a PCI-based IBM P/390 board (Not E)? I've
>> actually got two that I'm not using, and a PARCA
>> bus-and-tag board, and think that some other hobbyists should have a
>> chance to acquire this stuff...
> Interesting. Do you need OS/2 on the host machine for this card to
> function?
10:45 a.m.
On May 17, 2012, at 9:15 AM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
It actually pretty much works behind any PC that can
run OS/2 and has a secondary PCI bus behind any of several specific models of PCI-PCI
bridge.
It also works just fine on AIX 4.3.3, but when Dave McGuire and I were hacking on it last
time, we couldn't get the code to work on 5.1.
I wonder how hard it would be to write a Linux driver for it so it could be run on any
random hardware with a PCI bus.
"Yo dawg, we herd you like Linux, so we put a CPU in your CPU so you can hack while
you hack!"
2:59 p.m.
On 05/17/2012 10:45 AM, Daniel Seagraves wrote:
I wonder how hard it would be to write a Linux driver
for it so it
could be run on any random hardware with a PCI bus.
I can't think of anything that would make me jump up and down quite as
much as that. That would be *awesome*. I think, however, that there
probably isn't enough documentation available to be able to pull that
off without an awful lot of code tracing and reverse engineering.
"Yo dawg, we herd you like Linux, so we put a CPU
in your CPU so you
can hack while you hack!"
Oh dear.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
3:29 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
Well, that and the OS/2 and AIX software does quite a lot more than just
a driver.
Peace... Sridhar
I wonder how
hard it would be to write a Linux driver for it so it
could be run on any random hardware with a PCI bus.
I can't think of anything that would make me jump up and down quite as
much as that. That would be *awesome*. I think, however, that there
probably isn't enough documentation available to be able to pull that
off without an awful lot of code tracing and reverse engineering.
5:52 p.m.
On May 17, 2012, at 2:29 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Dave McGuire wrote:
Well, that and the OS/2 and AIX software does quite a lot more than just a driver.
I assume you mean emulate peripherals - In that case, perusal of the Hercules source
should get more than enough info for that.
I have an old PC and I have a copy of OS/2, how do I know if my bridge is supported?
Is there a list somewhere?
I wonder
how hard it would be to write a Linux driver for it so it
could be run on any random hardware with a PCI bus.
I can't think of anything that would make me jump up and down quite as
much as that. That would be *awesome*. I think, however, that there
probably isn't enough documentation available to be able to pull that
off without an awful lot of code tracing and reverse engineering.
7:38 p.m.
On 05/17/2012 05:52 PM, Daniel Seagraves wrote:
Well, that and the OS/2 and AIX software does quite a lot more than just a driver.
I assume you mean emulate peripherals - In that case, perusal of the Hercules source
should get more than enough info for that.
Except for how it interfaces to the P390.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
I wonder how
hard it would be to write a Linux driver for it so it
could be run on any random hardware with a PCI bus.
I can't think of anything that would make me jump up and down quite as
much as that. That would be *awesome*. I think, however, that there
probably isn't enough documentation available to be able to pull that
off without an awful lot of code tracing and reverse engineering.
11:07 a.m.
You need
specific models of machines for the card to be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time since
I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
It actually pretty much works behind any PC that can run OS/2 and has a
secondary PCI bus behind any of several specific models of PCI-PCI bridge.
It also works just fine on AIX 4.3.3, but when Dave McGuire and I were
hacking on it last time, we couldn't get the code to work on 5.1.
11:20 a.m.
Cameron Kaiser wrote:
What about AIX 4.1.5?
I think probably yes, but I have never tried it for myself.
Peace... Sridhar
You need specific models of machines for the card to
be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time since
I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
It actually pretty much works behind any PC that can run OS/2 and has a
secondary PCI bus behind any of several specific models of PCI-PCI bridge.
It also works just fine on AIX 4.3.3, but when Dave McGuire and I were
hacking on it last time, we couldn't get the code to work on 5.1.
11:36 a.m.
On 17/05/2012 15:15, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
jim s wrote:
I would also be interested in these. Currently run Hercules
but would
rather like a P/390 for comparison...
You need specific models of machines for the card
to be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time since
I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
It actually pretty much works behind any PC that can run OS/2 and has
a secondary PCI bus behind any of several specific models of PCI-PCI
bridge.
It also works just fine on AIX 4.3.3, but when Dave McGuire and I were
hacking on it last time, we couldn't get the code to work on 5.1.
Peace... Sridhar
On 5/16/2012 4:15 AM, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote:
> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:46 AM, Benjamin Huntsman
> <BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu> wrote:
>> Anyone here interested in a PCI-based IBM P/390 board (Not E)? I've
>> actually got two that I'm not using, and a PARCA
>> bus-and-tag board, and think that some other hobbyists should have a
>> chance to acquire this stuff...
> Interesting. Do you need OS/2 on the host machine for this card to
> function?
3:07 p.m.
On 05/17/2012 05:19 AM, jim s wrote:
You need specific models of machines for the card to
be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time
since I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
The microcode involved is actually the microcode for the S/390
processor on the board. That comes from a "LIC" (Licensed Internal
Code) file. That file is tough to get (but one need only ask), is
different between the three types of P/390 card, but it is the same
whether the card is hosted under AIX or OS/2.
The rest of the software is simply a set of drivers and a few
utilities. It's quite easy to install. The drivers provide for the
emulation of I/O hardware to access mass storage and network devices.
DASD is emulated by container files on the host system. Upon
initialization, this software loads the LIC data into the card, then
it's capable of booting whatever mainframe OS you want to run on it.
I've run OS/390 v2r9 and v2r10, and VM/ESA v2.3 on mine.
As Sridhar mentioned, the software doesn't want to install on later
releases of AIX. Something later than 4.3.3 MIGHT work, but 5.1 does not.
These cards hosted under AIX are quite nice.
The later P390/E cards with 1GB of RAM onboard are as scarce as hens'
teeth. I'd love to get my hands on one.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
22 May
22 May
3:28 p.m.
The R/390 microchannel version of the card did work on 4.3.3. Had such a beast as work
machine 10 years ago.
Wish they let me buy the silly thing... But of course it had to go through 3rd party asset
disposal to a company didn't resell to the public. And that meant it was deemed too
old to commercially market so it was broken up for parts. Corporate policies are wonderful
things.
-- Colin
Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 05/17/2012 05:19 AM, jim s wrote:
You need specific models of machines for the card to
be hosted. The
microcode for the system I think includes OS/2 It's been some time
since I loaded and ran the microcode on a cold machine.
There is also a way to run the cards hosted on an RS 6000 hosted by AIX.
The microcode involved is actually the microcode for the S/390
processor on the board. That comes from a "LIC" (Licensed Internal
Code) file. That file is tough to get (but one need only ask), is
different between the three types of P/390 card, but it is the same
whether the card is hosted under AIX or OS/2.
The rest of the software is simply a set of drivers and a few
utilities. It's quite easy to install. The drivers provide for the
emulation of I/O hardware to access mass storage and network devices.
DASD is emulated by container files on the host system. Upon
initialization, this software loads the LIC data into the card, then
it's capable of booting whatever mainframe OS you want to run on it.
I've run OS/390 v2r9 and v2r10, and VM/ESA v2.3 on mine.
As Sridhar mentioned, the software doesn't want to install on later
releases of AIX. Something later than 4.3.3 MIGHT work, but 5.1 does not.
These cards hosted under AIX are quite nice.
The later P390/E cards with 1GB of RAM onboard are as scarce as hens'
teeth. I'd love to get my hands on one.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
3:34 p.m.
On 05/22/2012 03:28 PM, Colin Eby wrote:
The R/390 microchannel version of the card did work on
4.3.3. Had such a beast as work machine 10 years ago.
Yup, that's what mine is running.
Wish they let me buy the silly thing... But of course
it had to go through 3rd party asset disposal to a company didn't resell to the
public. And that meant it was deemed too old to commercially market so it was broken up
for parts. Corporate policies are wonderful things.
Damn suits. I'm glad the world is finally starting to wake up and
realize their treachery.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
4415
days inactive
4424
days old
24 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
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bbrown＠harpercollege.edu -
BHuntsman＠mail2.cu-portland.edu -
colineby＠isallthat.com -
cube1＠charter.net -
dave.g4ugm＠gmail.com -
doc＠vaxen.net -
dseagrav＠lunar-tokyo.net -
jws＠jwsss.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
ploopster＠gmail.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
tingox＠gmail.com