15 Sep
1999
15 Sep
'99
12:13 p.m.
Today I hauled in something that I have no experience whatsoever with,
but that I'm sure most people in classiccmp own: a microvax II.
I don't know if it works, or how to hook a terminal to it to
test it. Here's what I've been able to gather:
Cards:
Slot description
1 CPU? it has two interesting-looking chips:
1: LSILIA 0485, 21-23413-01, DC379, TAC 8546
2: LSILIA 0486, 21-23389-01, DC379, CAC 8544
This is connected to a DB9M in the back panel (console goes here?
what is the pinout? what is the funny-labeled rotary switch next to
it?)
2 nemonix memory board, holds 56 TC511000AP-10 chips
3 dec memory board, holds 144 41256-212141302 chips
4 dec board, some labels are: LPWR M94V-1 25787, and "M7516" in the
extraction handle; connected to a DB15F in the back panel
5 dec board, (disk controller?), reads M7555 in the extraction handle,
connected to what seems to be an older RLL hard drive
Hard drive: RD53-A rev A
label in the back panel:
Model: 630QB-A2
product variation: changed from 630QB-A2 to DH630Q4E2 by WFD.
So what exactly is this beast and how can I test if it works?
Best regards,
Carlos.
15 Sep
15 Sep
12:39 p.m.
I'm sure you'll get better answers from this from the incredibly knowledgable
DEC folks on the list, but since I'm here and they may not be until later, I'll
give a stab at it.
Today I hauled in something that I have no experience
whatsoever with,
but that I'm sure most people in classiccmp own: a microvax II.
I don't know if it works, or how to hook a terminal to it to
test it. Here's what I've been able to gather:
Cards:
Slot description
1 CPU? it has two interesting-looking chips:
1: LSILIA 0485, 21-23413-01, DC379, TAC 8546
2: LSILIA 0486, 21-23389-01, DC379, CAC 8544
This is connected to a DB9M in the back panel (console goes here?
what is the pinout? what is the funny-labeled rotary switch next to
it?)
Dunno what the chips are, probably part of the vax chipset. That db9 is your
console socket. It's a straight rs232 terminal port. The rotary switch (if
memory serves) determines where in the boot cycle it goes to. In one position
it stops at the >>> (bios, more or less) prompt. In another it autoboots the
OS. I'm trying to remember if halt is on that switch or seperate, and I think
it's separate.
2 nemonix memory board, holds 56 TC511000AP-10 chips
3 dec memory board, holds 144 41256-212141302 chips
The dec memory board appears to be a 4 meg memory board. Since the machine can
address only 16 megs of ram, and since if memory serves it has a meg on the
mainboard, I'm going to hazard a guess here and guess the nemonix is an 8 meg
memory board, giving you 13 megs total. Not a bad amount at all. The uVax2s
that were part of a cluster I once ran ran VMS 5.5 in only 16 megs, and my
vaxstation 3100 does 7.2 (I think) on 8 megs. Ultrix runs nicely in 13 megs,
too, although compiling gcc took all day on the ultrix box with 13 megs that I
tried it on.
4 dec board, some labels are: LPWR M94V-1 25787,
and "M7516" in the
extraction handle; connected to a DB15F in the back panel
Not a clue here, although dec uses db15 for video on Vaxstation 3100s, so I
suspect it's a graphics card.
5 dec board, (disk controller?), reads M7555 in the extraction handle,
connected to what seems to be an older RLL hard drive
Hard drive: RD53-A rev A
Yup. RD53 is an RLL 40 meg, I think. Not very reliable in my experience.
Somewhere on the system is probably a tk50 tape drive, too. Slow and not
very high density per cartrige, but they work.
label in the back panel:
Model: 630QB-A2
product variation: changed from 630QB-A2 to DH630Q4E2 by WFD.
So what exactly is this beast and how can I test if it works?
Best regards,
Carlos.
Any AUI ports in the back of the machine? Might be handy to know what, if any,
ethernet it's got. It'll become important if you want to run VMS on it.
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
BeOS Powered!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1:03 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Jim Strickland wrote:
It is separate...its a toggle switch next to the boot action rotary switch.
The >>> business is more commonly referred to as the "rom monitor".
M7516 is an ethernet card, otherwise known as DELQA. It is the faster of the
two common Qbus ethernet cards. The DB15 connector is an AUI interface...you
can get a transceiver to go to 10baseT or whatever network hardware you're
running.
71mb. Prone to spindle motor controller failures.
1 CPU? it
has two interesting-looking chips:
1: LSILIA 0485, 21-23413-01, DC379, TAC 8546
2: LSILIA 0486, 21-23389-01, DC379, CAC 8544
This is connected to a DB9M in the back panel (console goes here?
what is the pinout? what is the funny-labeled rotary switch next to
it?)
Dunno what the chips are, probably part of the vax chipset. That db9 is your
console socket. It's a straight rs232 terminal port. The rotary switch (if
memory serves) determines where in the boot cycle it goes to. In one position
it stops at the >>> (bios, more or less) prompt. In another it autoboots the
OS. I'm trying to remember if halt is on that switch or seperate, and I think
it's separate. The dec memory board appears to be a 4 meg memory
board. Since the machine can
address only 16 megs of ram, and since if memory serves it has a meg on the
mainboard, I'm going to hazard a guess here and guess the nemonix is an 8 meg
memory board, giving you 13 megs total. Not a bad amount at all. The uVax2s
that were part of a cluster I once ran ran VMS 5.5 in only 16 megs, and my
vaxstation 3100 does 7.2 (I think) on 8 megs. Ultrix runs nicely in 13 megs,
too, although compiling gcc took all day on the ultrix box with 13 megs that I
tried it on.
13mb is indeed a reasonable amount of memory for a VAX. VAXen are *very*
memory efficient. On a 3100/m38 running Ultrix 3.1, I had two compiles and an
emacs session running, with X, on a 16mb system...with *NO* swapping!
There is 1mb of RAM on the KA630 CPU board, and the max RAM is 16mb for that
CPU. If you put two 8mb boards into the system, the onboard 1mb of RAM is
disabled.
4 dec
board, some labels are: LPWR M94V-1 25787, and "M7516" in the
extraction handle; connected to a DB15F in the back panel
Not a clue here, although dec uses db15 for video on Vaxstation 3100s, so I
suspect it's a graphics card. > 5 dec board, (disk controller?), reads M7555
in the extraction handle,
> connected to what seems to be an older RLL hard drive
MFM, not RLL. The M7555 is otherwise known as the RQDX3 disk controller. A
nice board. It controls up to two floppy drives (RX50 or RX33) and up to two
hard drives. Here's a list of the hard drives it supports, their approximate
capacities, and their original manufacturer and part number:
RD50 5mb Seagate ST506
RD51 10mb Seagate ST412
RD52 35mb Quantum Q540
RD53 71mb Micropolis 1325
RD54 159mb Maxtor XT-2190
RD31 21mb Seagate ST225
RD32 42mb Seagate ST251
Hard drive:
RD53-A rev A
Yup. RD53 is an RLL 40 meg, I think. Not very reliable in my experience. Somewhere on the system is probably a tk50 tape drive,
too. Slow and not
very high density per cartrige, but they work.
TK50 is 95mb...not very useful for backups due to small capacity, but they
were (are) commonly used as a software distribution medium.
> So what exactly is this beast and how can I test
if it works?
Well, get yourself an ASCII terminal and plug it into that db9. Power it up,
and you should see the CPU identify itself (it's a KA630) and then you'll see a
countdown. It'll take a few minutes. Each number that it prints is another
part of the power-on diagnostics. If all goes well, you'll either start to
boot whatever OS is on that RD53, or you'll land at a ">>>"
prompt.
That machine is capable of running Ultrix, VMS, or NetBSD, by the way. It's
a bit slow by today's standards, but it still can be very useful, and lots of
fun to run. You have an easy in-box upgrade path to the KA650 CPU
(MicroVAX-III) by swapping the CPU and memory boards...makes it about three
times faster and increases the addressable RAM to 64mb IIRC.
Good luck, and please don't hesitate to post questions here.
-Dave McGuire
1:26 p.m.
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2:54 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Zane H. Healy wrote:
The big problem is it requires a special cable, fairly
easy to make if you
have the parts though. I don't happen to have the pinout handy.
Hi Zane; I don't understand; Jim and Chuck said that the pin-out was
standard... why do you need a special cable?
You'll want a copy of the following file. It
won't help much/any for 3rd
party boards but you should find most DEC Q-Bus and Unibus boards listed.
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/hardware…
The good news is this is a DELQA, which is the ethernet controller still
supported under OpenVMS.
Thanks for the pointer!
The RD53 is ~73Mb, normally though it's a paper
weight. I've gotten 3 of
them that worked, the next day two of them didn't. DO NOT TRUST THIS DRIVE.
Unfortunatly it doesn't sound as if this system has a TK50 drive, they're
kinda hard to miss ;^)
Yes, there's nothing but the hard drive in the front.
Well, assuming the CPU card is a KA630, you've got
a MicroVAX II like you
said ;^) Nice machines. I don't think you mentioned which chassis you've
got, but something tells me it might be a BA23 instead of the larger BA123.
How can you tell one from the other? This has four horizontal front bays
and one vertical; it is rated at 8.8A, 690W at 120V. The whole thing
measures about 24" (height) x 13" (width) x 27" (depth)
Carlos.
4:10 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, cem14(a)cornell.edu wrote:
How can you tell one from the other? This has four
horizontal front bays
and one vertical; it is rated at 8.8A, 690W at 120V. The whole thing
measures about 24" (height) x 13" (width) x 27" (depth)
That's a BA123, otherwise known as a "world box". VERY nice chassis;
I'm
sure I'm not the only one on the list who's jealous!
The interior is somewhat dusty, but not too much. The
card edges that go
into the slots did not look bad in terms of oxidation; I think that they
make positive contact. I wonder if power suply failures are common
for this machine... and if the expected lifetime of the capacitors is
long enough.
The power supplies in those boxes are very robust...failures are not common
at all. I'm willing to bet that it'll work just fine. A case in point: I have
a BA123 containing a MicroVAX-II system that I dragged out of a mud puddle. It
had been sitting there for roughly four months. I hosed it down, then let it
sit inside for a week over an air conditioning vent. The tape drive was shot,
but everything else was just fine, and the system has been running for over a
year with no problems. VERY solid hardware.
I have nothing against netBSD, but I'd like to
learn about VMS,
so I hope the hard drive has some version of it.
I'd suggest becoming a DECUS member (see http://www.decus.org), then once you
have a DECUS number you can get what's known as a "VMS Hobbyist License"
from
http://www.montagar.com. Then you can install VMS, all the way up to the
current v7.2. Feel free to email me privately if you have any questions about
this. It's easy and fun!
-Dave McGuire
4:38 p.m.
Well, assuming
the CPU card is a KA630, you've got a MicroVAX II like you
said ;^) Nice machines. I don't think you mentioned which chassis you've
got, but something tells me it might be a BA23 instead of the larger BA123.
How can you tell one from the other? This has four horizontal front bays
and one vertical; it is rated at 8.8A, 690W at 120V. The whole thing
measures about 24" (height) x 13" (width) x 27" (depth) Which if the drives that Dave mentioned is considered
reliable?
(repeated below)
RD50 5mb Seagate ST506
RD51 10mb Seagate ST412
RD52 35mb Quantum Q540
RD53 71mb Micropolis 1325
RD54 159mb Maxtor XT-2190
RD31 21mb Seagate ST225
RD32 42mb Seagate ST251
Well, the RD50-52 and RD31/32 are really to small to be of use, thankfully
the RD54 seems to be a fairly good drive. I personally believe that the
best answer is to get a 3rd party ESDI controller or get really lucky and
get a SCSI controller (you don't want to know what they cost).
BTW, I liked your comments about OpenVMS and NetBSD. I'm a firm believer
of running VMS on these systems (though I've got to admit I'm thinking of
installing Ultrix).
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
2:30 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Jim Strickland wrote:
Dunno what the chips are, probably part of the vax
chipset. That db9 is your
console socket. It's a straight rs232 terminal port. The rotary switch (if
memory serves) determines where in the boot cycle it goes to. In one position
it stops at the >>> (bios, more or less)
Great! I needed to know that it was standard before I plugged anything in it.
Yup. RD53 is an RLL 40 meg, I think. Not very
reliable in my experience.
Somewhere on the system is probably a tk50 tape drive, too. Slow and not
very high density per cartrige, but they work.
Unfortunately, there is nothing but the hard drive in the drive bays.
Any AUI ports in the back of the machine? Might be
handy to know what, if any,
ethernet it's got. It'll become important if you want to run VMS on it.
As a matter of fact, the DB15F does have the interlocks found in AUI's.
Thanks again,
Carlos.
3:07 p.m.
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2:17 p.m.
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3:34 p.m.
On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
You're right, as always Tony! they are in fact 72 chips. I counted 8
groups of 9 chips, and by the time I got to they keyboard with
all that info to type, I mangled the numbers in my mind.
16 groups of nine in this case.
Yes, an RS232 console port. The trap is that it is not
the same pinout as the
PC/AT DE-9 serial ports. I can't remember the pinout, but it shouldn't be
that hard to find ground, TxD and RxD
Thanks Tony. Clint has already provided me with the pinout. I'll have
to wait until tomorrow to get the connectors, though.
2 nemonix
memory board, holds 56 TC511000AP-10 chips
IIRC, each of thos chips is 1Mbit. So that would appear to be 7Mbytes
with no parity or error correction at all (????). Seems a little strange.
Even though there is 1 Mbyte on the CPU board, so 7Mbytes could be
possible. Only problem is, surely the memory needs to be 32 bits wide (so
I would have expected a multiple of 32 or 36 (parity on each byte) here). 3 dec
memory board, holds 144 41256-212141302 chips
DEC 4Mbyte memory board, I think. Much more likely to be MFM than RLL. IIRC that board
handles MFM hard
drives and RX50 floppy drives.
Yes an MFM hard disk -- Micropolis 1300-something
IIRC. Well known for
developing mechanical problems which may be fixable...
Which if the drives that Dave mentioned is considered reliable?
(repeated below)
RD50 5mb Seagate ST506
RD51 10mb Seagate ST412
RD52 35mb Quantum Q540
RD53 71mb Micropolis 1325
RD54 159mb Maxtor XT-2190
RD31 21mb Seagate ST225
RD32 42mb Seagate ST251
Carlos.
4:18 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, cem14(a)cornell.edu wrote:
Which if the drives that Dave mentioned is considered
reliable?
(repeated below)
RD50 5mb Seagate ST506
RD51 10mb Seagate ST412
RD52 35mb Quantum Q540
RD53 71mb Micropolis 1325
RD54 159mb Maxtor XT-2190
RD31 21mb Seagate ST225
RD32 42mb Seagate ST251
I'd say the RD52 is probably the *most* reliable, but it's pretty small. I
use them a lot on PDP11 systems where OSs tend to be much more compact. I've
had reasonably good luck with RD54s, though they're a bit harder to find.
You'll be able to find one of those if you hunt around a bit.
-Dave McGuire
5:03 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, cem14(a)cornell.edu wrote:
Actually if going with MFM drives probably the best thing you can do is to
get a VAXstation 2000 (aka Hard Drive Formatter), and hunt up Quantum
Q540's and Maxtor XT-2190's at your local junk dealers, swap meets and
scrappers.
I still cringe when I think of the one local scrapper telling me he'd
scrapped and ENTIRE crate of UNUSED RD54's :^(
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Which if the drives that Dave mentioned is
considered reliable?
(repeated below)
RD50 5mb Seagate ST506
RD51 10mb Seagate ST412
RD52 35mb Quantum Q540
RD53 71mb Micropolis 1325
RD54 159mb Maxtor XT-2190
RD31 21mb Seagate ST225
RD32 42mb Seagate ST251
I'd say the RD52 is probably the *most* reliable, but it's pretty small. I
use them a lot on PDP11 systems where OSs tend to be much more compact. I've
had reasonably good luck with RD54s, though they're a bit harder to find.
You'll be able to find one of those if you hunt around a bit.
-Dave McGuire
16 Sep
16 Sep
8:42 a.m.
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15 Sep
15 Sep
2:26 p.m.
Congratulations!
I have several of these machines, and probably have an extra
users manual as well...
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 cem14(a)cornell.edu wrote:
Today I hauled in something that I have no experience whatsoever with,
but that I'm sure most people in classiccmp own: a microvax II.
I don't know if it works, or how to hook a terminal to it to
test it. Here's what I've been able to gather:
Cards:
Slot description
1 CPU? it has two interesting-looking chips:
1: LSILIA 0485, 21-23413-01, DC379, TAC 8546
2: LSILIA 0486, 21-23389-01, DC379, CAC 8544
This is connected to a DB9M in the back panel (console goes here?
what is the pinout? what is the funny-labeled rotary switch next to
it?)
Yep, that is the CPU. Near the upper right corner (with the card
fingers down) should be 'M7606' the dec model number for a uVAX II
CPU (AKA KA630).
The pinout is a bit strange:
DE-9 (DEC) DB-25 (PC)
1 1
2 3
3 2
4 5
5 6
6 20
7 7
8 -\
9 -/ (short 8 & 9) together
The toggle switch controls whether the system boots on powerup,
or enters the console.
The three position rotary switch controls the power up mode
(arrow is normal, face is language inquiry, i dunno the other one)
The last one is the console baud rate.
2 nemonix memory board, holds 56 TC511000AP-10
chips
Unknown 3rd party memory... Probably 4Mb or 8Mb
3 dec memory board, holds 144 41256-212141302 chips
8Mb DEC memory board, IIRC.
The maximum amount of memory you can have in a uVAX II is 16Mb, using
two 8Mb memory boards. Unless it is a VAXStation II/GPX in which case
the max is 12MB (or maybe 13MB)... You don't have the extra three cards
to make it a GPX system.
The CPU has 1MB on it, but it is disabled if there are two 8MB memory
boards installed.
4 dec board, some labels are: LPWR M94V-1 25787, and "M7516" in the
extraction handle; connected to a DB15F in the back panel
Ethernet card, probably a DEQNA. The 15 pin connector is a (old style)
AUI interface. You can get a DESTA to convert the AUI to thinwire coax,
or ??? to convert to 10-base-T.
5 dec board, (disk controller?), reads M7555 in
the extraction handle,
connected to what seems to be an older RLL hard drive
Yep, disk controller (an RQDX3 to be precise)... Also can interface to
floppies if you have any.
Hard drive: RD53-A rev A
75 or so MB MFM hard drive. Probably dead... They never were very
good.
label in the back panel:
Model: 630QB-A2
product variation: changed from 630QB-A2 to DH630Q4E2 by WFD.
Don't know what that means, I've got a similiar one on the machine
nearest to me (I have one on each floor of my house :)
So what exactly is this beast and how can I test if it works?
About the same horsepower as a VAX 11/780 (but doesn't handle
multiple users because of a slower I/O system). It is reasonably
spunky for one user.
Build a cable (or use a DEC BC08 cable), plug it in to a terminal,
set the proper baud rate, power it up and you should see something
like:
KA630-A.1
1) Dansk 7) Nederlands
blah blah blah
(1..11):
If you choose the language of choice, you get:
Performing normal systems tests.
7..6..5..4..3..
Tests completed.
>>
The countdown takes a while (several minutes), then the chevron
appears if you set the boot toggle switch to halt on powerup.
Otherwise it will:
2..1..0
And start booting off the disk (unless it is bad)...
Good luck!!!
clint
Best regards,
Carlos.
3:25 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Clint Wolff (VAX collector) wrote:
The pinout is a bit strange:
DE-9 (DEC) DB-25 (PC)
1 1
2 3
3 2
4 5
5 6
6 20
7 7
8 -\
9 -/ (short 8 & 9) together
Great! now all I have to do is solder.
The three position rotary switch controls the power up
mode
(arrow is normal, face is language inquiry, i dunno the other one)
Ok, so nothing bad would happen by choosing the wrong one. This
switch really was a big question mark for me.
The maximum amount of memory you can have in a uVAX II
is 16Mb, using
two 8Mb memory boards. Unless it is a VAXStation II/GPX in which case
the max is 12MB (or maybe 13MB)... You don't have the extra three cards
to make it a GPX system.
Apparently, there used to be other cards in here; there are four
small PC's fixed in the inside of the back panel, each holding
four DB25M connectors, but the ribbon cables coming out of them
are not connected to anything...
75 or so MB MFM hard drive. Probably dead... They
never were very
good.
hmm, everyone has expressed the same opinion about the drive.
Tony at least said that it was fixable, what he did not say
was whether he was the only one who could possibly fix them :-)
Thanks for all the info!
Carlos.
16 Sep
16 Sep
8:37 a.m.
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2:53 p.m.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 cem14(a)cornell.edu wrote:
Anyone with the customer diagnostics (and a uVAX II) can reformat it,
people with a uVAX 2000 can COMPLETEly reformat it (including the
bad block table, spare tracks, etc)...
I bought a SCSI controllers (CMD CQD-240/TM) for mine, and I run a
single 1.2GB drive. They are quieter, and more reliable. This is
a fairly expensive solution... I paid $800 each for the SCSI controller
(refurbished, from a DEC reseller... Foolish me...), and $200 each for
the drives.
In one of your other EMails, you expressed an interest in VMS... You
can get a (free) license for hobbiest use for VMS from DECUS... You
have to buy the CDROM, and then figure out how to get it onto the
disk. Booting from a Linux system is apparently possible, though
I haven't tried it.
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999, Clint Wolff (VAX collector) wrote:
These are the breakout panels for two DHV11 (or is it DHU11) serial
boards. Its nice to have an additional terminal to log into from
time to time if the machine isn't on the network.
You can probably find one on EBay for ~$10 (they aren't very popular).
The pinout is a bit strange:
DE-9 (DEC) DB-25 (PC)
1 1
2 3
3 2
4 5
5 6
6 20
7 7
8 -\
9 -/ (short 8 & 9) together
Great! now all I have to do is solder.
The three position rotary switch controls the
power up mode
(arrow is normal, face is language inquiry, i dunno the other one)
Ok, so nothing bad would happen by choosing the wrong one. This
switch really was a big question mark for me.
The maximum amount of memory you can have in a
uVAX II is 16Mb, using
two 8Mb memory boards. Unless it is a VAXStation II/GPX in which case
the max is 12MB (or maybe 13MB)... You don't have the extra three cards
to make it a GPX system.
Apparently, there used to be other cards in here; there are four
small PC's fixed in the inside of the back panel, each holding
four DB25M connectors, but the ribbon cables coming out of them
are not connected to anything...
75 or so MB
MFM hard drive. Probably dead... They never were very
good.
hmm, everyone has expressed the same opinion about the drive.
Tony at least said that it was fixable, what he did not say
was whether he was the only one who could possibly fix them :-)
Thanks for all the info!
Welcome! try http://vaxarchive.org for more stuff... They seem to
be having trouble staying up though, so try at different times of
the day.
Carlos.
clint
5:22 p.m.
Upon the date 05:53 PM 9/16/99 -0600, Clint Wolff (VAX collector) said
something like:
On Wed, 15 Sep 1999 cem14(a)cornell.edu wrote:
>
-- snipparoni --
disk. Booting from a Linux system is apparently
possible, though
I haven't tried it.
AHA! Clint that's it!
Earlier today I asked in this same thread what happened to
http://vaxarchive.ml.org/.
To wit:
Thanks for all the info!
Welcome! try http://vaxarchive.org for more stuff... They seem to
be having trouble staying up though, so try at different times of
the day. Incidentally, for you other DEC mavens, I tried
reviewing the VAXArchive at
http://vaxarchive.ml.org/ but it seems to be either relocated or not
available anymore. I felt it was a good VAX info resource. "Unable to find
the server vaxarchive.ml.org" is the message thrown back which suggests
it's MIA. Could anyone confirm?
and Ethan replyed: "The entire ml.org domain is defunct."
Dang. But then you chime in with the above URL, Clint. Thanks muchly!
There's a lot of bits of VAX info at this site.
I originally wanted to point out a few more MVII things for you to look at
in the vaxarchive site Carlos! Dig around in it and enjoy.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/
7:11 p.m.
In one of your other EMails, you expressed an interest
in VMS... You
can get a (free) license for hobbiest use for VMS from DECUS... You
have to buy the CDROM, and then figure out how to get it onto the
disk. Booting from a Linux system is apparently possible, though
I haven't tried it.
You've kidding! Someone has booted a VMS box off of a Linux system!?!?!
Whoa, that is seriously cool! Got any pointers to that? I personally
don't want to try that, and since I've got a cluster going already, have no
reason to, but the idea is cool!
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
17 Sep
17 Sep
4:05 a.m.
You've kidding! Someone has booted a VMS box off
of a Linux system!?!?!
Whoa, that is seriously cool! Got any pointers to that? I personally
don't want to try that, and since I've got a cluster going already, have no
reason to, but the idea is cool!
Technically this should not be that unreasonable to do. The Linux box
only has to be able to serve MOP boot and then at some point DECnet.
Most MicroVAXen already know MOP over eithernet so the rest is up to the
boot host.
This is more important to those that would like to run a uVAX with VMS and
not have a suitable install load media on the vax when they have a PC with
CDrom.
Allison
9 a.m.
Technically this should not be that unreasonable to
do. The Linux box
only has to be able to serve MOP boot and then at some point DECnet.
Most MicroVAXen already know MOP over eithernet so the rest is up to the
boot host.
This is more important to those that would like to run a uVAX with VMS and
not have a suitable install load media on the vax when they have a PC with
CDrom.
You've got me interested now, since I have a VMS CD but no way to hook a
CDROM to my MicroVax-II...how would one go about doing this?
Cheers,
Chris
11:40 a.m.
You've got me interested now, since I have a
VMS CD but no way to hook a
CDROM to my MicroVax-II...how would one go about doing this?
One of several ways:
Find an RRD40 and qbus cotroller for it.
Find an RRD50 and qbus controller for it
Find a SCSI Qbus adaptor and a CDrom that works (different
block size for PC)
Other routes would be to get a working TK50 or TK70 with controller and
have someone cut tapes for you (this is allowed).
Allison
18 Sep
18 Sep
10:11 a.m.
You've got me interested now, since I
have a VMS CD but no way to hook a
CDROM to my MicroVax-II...how would one go about doing this?
One of several ways:
Find an RRD40 and qbus cotroller for it.
Find an RRD50 and qbus controller for it
Find a SCSI Qbus adaptor and a CDrom that works (different
block size for PC)
Other routes would be to get a working TK50 or TK70 with controller and
have someone cut tapes for you (this is allowed).
Allison
9076
days inactive
9079
days old
23 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
allisonp＠world.std.com -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cem14＠cornell.edu -
cfandt＠netsync.net -
cureau＠centuryinter.net -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jim＠calico.litterbox.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
vaxman＠oldy.crwolff.com