19 Aug
2007
19 Aug
'07
6:08 a.m.
Well, Sridhar and I spent yesterday doing some
tinkering - I brought over my MicroVax II and we
attempted to load VMS onto it. Easier said than done.
By shuffleing parts around (and some considerable work
getting ribbon cables through the bulkhead of a BA23),
I was able to get a Microvax II configured with:
Ethernet, ESDI w/ 70mb hard disk, and a TK50.
I brought this Vax to Sridhar's house. The general
consensus both here and on the netbsd list seems to be
that the only way to boot/install a Vax is through
MOP, over Ethernet. Well, now that I found Ethernet,
it should have been simple. Sridhar has a Dec
InfoServer 1000. This is a really cool little device
the size of a CDROM player that can connect to a SCSI
CD drive, and Ethernet, and be bootable by networked
Vaxen.
So, we cabled everything up, and immediately hit a
snag. The InfoServer won't see the CDROM. In fact, it
won't even boot right if there's a CD drive connected.
We tried other CD drives, other cables, played with
termination, everything. I discovered that the machine
wouldn't boot if you just had a terminated cable
plugged into it. The connectors are clearly labeled
and keyed - no chance of mixing that up. A last ditch
effort was to take a non-keyed cable, and purposely
insert it backwards on one end. And it worked. So, if
anyone is trying to connect a drive to an InfoServer
1000 using the 50 pin SCSI header on the InfoServer's
board - that connector is BACKWARD! You must use a
non-keyed cable and plug it in BACKWARD in order to
make it work.
After getting that going, and getting all the commands
correct to boot the Vax off the InfoServer - all
seemed well. Do the base restore set from the
InfoServer, boot from the hard disk, follow the
prompts and install the rest of the distribution. This
is a 70mb ESDI disk, so after the base load, I had
about 65000 blocks free. According to the installer,
the Library, Help and DecNet phase IV will fit, just
barely, with 300 blocks to spare. It won't. The
installer runs out of space and crashes horribly.
Reboot, reinstall base, back into installer, select
only Library and DecNet IV. This leaves nearly 11000
free blocks according to the installer. This does not
fit either, running out of disk during installation.
At this point, it was 3:30 AM. We decided to call it a
day (night?). Maybe I'll try NetBSD again. There has
to be a way to get an OS onto a Vax in 70 megabytes.
-Ian
19 Aug
19 Aug
6:43 a.m.
On 8/19/07, Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> wrote:
Well, Sridhar and I spent yesterday doing some
tinkering - I brought over my MicroVax II and we
attempted to load VMS onto it. Easier said than done.
I brought this Vax to Sridhar's house. The general
consensus both here and on the netbsd list seems to be
that the only way to boot/install a Vax is through
MOP, over Ethernet
If you happen to have a q-bus SCSI controller which supports CD-ROM
drives that's also a fine way to boot and install VMS. I did that
with 7.3 on my MV-III (KA655) and a Dilog SQ706A. But then if you did
have a q-bus SCSI controller you wouldn't be fighting with a 70MB hard
drive. Larger ESDI hard drives shouldn't be too difficult or
expensive to come by either.
But if the point of the exercise is to make the 70MB hard drive work I
don't have any personal experience advice there. I just download the
NetBSD 3.1 Vax CD a couple of days ago and haven't tried installing
that yet.
6:55 a.m.
But then if you did
have a q-bus SCSI controller you wouldn't be
fighting with a 70MB hard
drive.
Exactly.
Larger ESDI hard drives shouldn't be too
difficult or
expensive to come by either.
Yeah, I know - but that's the largest I could find at
home in short notice. I may have larger ones even, I
just haven't been able to find them :) I hoped it
would be enough...
But if the point of the exercise is to make the 70MB
hard drive work I
don't have any personal experience advice there.
The point of the exercise was to get make a MicroVax
II work...
I
just download the
NetBSD 3.1 Vax CD a couple of days ago and haven't
tried installing
that yet.
CD booting from NetBSD may work. What I found was that
tape booting NetBSD quietly stopped working YEARS ago,
and the FAQ was never updated. I spent a whole day
trying to figure out why it wouldn't boot before I got
the response on port-vax "oh, yeah, just mop boot it".
And at that time I didn't realize I had an ethernet
card.
-Ian
7:54 a.m.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
CD booting from NetBSD may work. What I found was that
tape booting NetBSD quietly stopped working YEARS ago,
and the FAQ was never updated. I spent a whole day
trying to figure out why it wouldn't boot before I got
the response on port-vax "oh, yeah, just mop boot it".
And at that time I didn't realize I had an ethernet
card.
And just for the sake of discussion, you can also use your MVII
diskless. At one point I had so many of them, that I just removed all
the drives and run them diskless, all the data were on FreeBSD.
(No real preference of FreeBSD over NetBSD, the system just had bigger
drives at this time)
20 Aug
20 Aug
4:23 a.m.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
CD booting from NetBSD may work. What I found was
that
tape booting NetBSD quietly stopped working YEARS ago,
and the FAQ was never updated. I spent a whole day
trying to figure out why it wouldn't boot before I got
the response on port-vax "oh, yeah, just mop boot it".
And at that time I didn't realize I had an ethernet
card.
For what it's worth, I ran NetBSD on my MV-III diskless for a long
time. It was considerably faster than running on RD54.
I expect that ESDI is faster than MFM, but running diskless would get
you around the 70MB limit. Running swap on the local disk would not
only be faster than straight diskless, but would exercise the ESDI
subsystem.
I've never run an InfoServer, but mopd on my Debian Linux box has
booted anything I tried against it, except a DECstation 5000-200. That
was a known issue with NetBSD.
Doc
5:18 a.m.
For all those that asked - I was trying to install VMS
7.2. Obviously, an older version would have had a
better time fitting, but this is the only version we
had available. I was just realliy suprised that the
installer claimed that it would fit with 10000 blocks
to spare, and then promptly ran out of space. It makes
sense - VMS pages to a file on the disk, and any
unpacking routine would use disk, but, oh well. Live
and learn.
I did some digging here and found a 300 mb ESDI disk.
I have no idea if it works or not, I'll give it a shot
as soon as I have a chance.
With regards to booting - has anyone used mopd on
Linux to install VMS? I am wondering if it's possible
to build up a Linux box to act as an InfoServer (I
don't have one, Sridhar does).
Also, does anyone have a Qbus DSSI controller that
needs a home? <grin>
-Ian
6:07 a.m.
On 8/20/07, Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> wrote:
For all those that asked - I was trying to install
VMS
7.2. Obviously, an older version would have had a
better time fitting, but this is the only version we
had available. I was just realliy suprised that the
installer claimed that it would fit with 10000 blocks
to spare, and then promptly ran out of space.
That's probably a faulty assumption (or perhaps a real bug) in the
installer script.
It makes
sense - VMS pages to a file on the disk, and any
unpacking routine would use disk, but, oh well. Live
and learn.
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/info/SP4187/SP4187PF.PDF
(OpenVMS 7.2 SPD)
On page 26, it claims the minimum base OS for VAX is 32MB, but there
are lots of optional and non-optional extras. I don't know what the
install script assumes, but the base OS plus page file plus "variable
additional space" (INDEXF.SYS, etc.) is around 40MB. That doesn't
count working space for unpacked savesets, default swap and dump
files, etc., or the "optional" files that aren't really so optional.
A "full" install is around 150MB, and indeed, the sample disk sizes
were calculated from an install on a VAXserver 2000 w/6MB (RAM size
affects calculated page and swap and dump sizes) and an RD54 (the
largest disk supported inside a VS2K).
There's a thought... cut your physical memory back... then the install
script won't create such large page and swap files (and tell it not to
create a dump file). That might give you a bit more room.
I did some digging here and found a 300 mb ESDI disk.
I have no idea if it works or not, I'll give it a shot
as soon as I have a chance.
Good luck with that. You should find it plenty large enough.
With regards to booting - has anyone used mopd on
Linux to install VMS? I am wondering if it's possible
to build up a Linux box to act as an InfoServer (I
don't have one, Sridhar does).
I have not, but if I did try it, I would begin by expecting it to
work. Obviously confirmation from someone who has done it is very
reassuring.
Also, does anyone have a Qbus DSSI controller that
needs a home? <grin>
Nope. Sorry. I've never worked with DSSI. I had a DSSI pedestal a
while back, but I gave it to another list member in Columbus.
-ethan
6:51 a.m.
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
For all those that asked - I was trying to install
VMS
7.2. Obviously, an older version would have had a
better time fitting, but this is the only version we
had available. I was just realliy suprised that the
installer claimed that it would fit with 10000 blocks
to spare, and then promptly ran out of space. It makes
sense - VMS pages to a file on the disk, and any
unpacking routine would use disk, but, oh well. Live
and learn.
I did some digging here and found a 300 mb ESDI disk.
I have no idea if it works or not, I'll give it a shot
as soon as I have a chance.
With regards to booting - has anyone used mopd on
Linux to install VMS? I am wondering if it's possible
to build up a Linux box to act as an InfoServer (I
don't have one, Sridhar does).
You're welcome to come back and use it again. We have to do that other
machine anyway. It should go a lot faster now that we have all of the
kinks ironed out of the procedure.
Peace... Sridhar
19 Aug
19 Aug
6:50 a.m.
On Sun, 19 Aug 2007, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
Well, Sridhar and I spent yesterday doing some
tinkering - I brought over my MicroVax II and we
attempted to load VMS onto it. Easier said than done.
<<SNIP>>
At this point, it was 3:30 AM. We decided to call it
a
day (night?). Maybe I'll try NetBSD again. There has
to be a way to get an OS onto a Vax in 70 megabytes.
My first VAX was a MicroVAX 2000 and it booted VMS from a local RD53
(71Mb?). This would have been something around VAX/VMS v5.4 and included
the help library and DECnet Phase IV, but no IP. My memory is a bit fuzzy
but I think I had it booting a bare minimal system from an RD52 as well,
but couldn't swear to this. At the time the place I worked at had a PC
maintenance dept that was well stocked with MFM/RLL drives, and I remember
trying all sorts in the thing with little or no success.
Andrew
9:45 a.m.
At 6:08 AM -0700 8/19/07, Mr Ian Primus wrote:
There has
to be a way to get an OS onto a Vax in 70 megabytes.
You don't mention *what* version of VMS. If you go with VAX/VMS
V5.5-2 (Hobbyist V1 CD-ROM) it is possible to fit it onto a 70MB
disk, though you'll have to leave some stuff out as I recall. It is
a pretty tight fit. If you could get ahold of MicroVMS V4.x it would
definitely fit (I have no idea where to find a copy).
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
1:34 p.m.
At 3:40 PM -0400 8/19/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
What version were you trying to load? With that high I'm guessing OpenVMS 7.3?
Since Ian mentioned that he's using an ESDI drive, how hard is it to
find something in the 200-500MB range these days? It has been 8+
years since I last looked for ESDI drives and around here it wasn't
easy, but I know other areas differ.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Well, Sridhar and I spent yesterday doing some
tinkering - I brought over my MicroVax II and we
attempted to load VMS onto it. Easier said than done.
I found out that the minimum requirement was 209MB.
BTW, glad you got home ok.
Peace... Sridhar 
2:01 p.m.
On 19 Aug 2007 at 13:34, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Since Ian mentioned that he's using an ESDI drive,
how hard is it to
find something in the 200-500MB range these days? It has been 8+
years since I last looked for ESDI drives and around here it wasn't
easy, but I know other areas differ.
ESDI hard drives on the used market seem to cluster in two groups.
150MB or less and more than 600MB. In particualar, Maxtor/Miniscribe
760MB units and Hitachi 780MB drives seem to be not uncommon and
available for less than USD$100 from a number of retailers.
Cheers,
Chuck
2:18 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 19 Aug 2007 at 13:34, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Do you have a link?
Peace... Sridhar
Since Ian mentioned that he's using an ESDI
drive, how hard is it to
find something in the 200-500MB range these days? It has been 8+
years since I last looked for ESDI drives and around here it wasn't
easy, but I know other areas differ.
ESDI hard drives on the used market seem to cluster in two groups.
150MB or less and more than 600MB. In particualar, Maxtor/Miniscribe
760MB units and Hitachi 780MB drives seem to be not uncommon and
available for less than USD$100 from a number of retailers.
3:01 p.m.
On 19 Aug 2007 at 17:18, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Do you have a link?
Sure, try these on for size:
http://www.4drives.com/
http://www.sdperipherals.com/
http://www.partstore.com/
http://arcdrives.com/store/
And many others. Prices vary wildly, but arcdrives and 4drives seem
to have the best prices.
Cheers,
Chuck
4:27 p.m.
On 8/19/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 19 Aug 2007 at 17:18, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I have had good luck so far with eBay sales from 4drives (Discount
Computer Perhipherals) aka brickcollector.
http://stores.ebay.com/4DRIVES-COM-OUTLET
For example they currently have a ST4383E 380MB listed for $25. I
picked up some working 155MB ESDI drives for $10 each from them at one
point and some working 630MB ESDI drives for $25 each a while ago.
Shipping adds up though.
Also look at this one which is two drives and two QD21 controllers.
(No connection to seller):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120152910171
Do you have a link?
Sure, try these on for size:
http://www.4drives.com/
3:06 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
ESDI hard drives on the used market seem to cluster in
two groups.
150MB or less and more than 600MB. In particualar, Maxtor/Miniscribe
760MB units and Hitachi 780MB drives seem to be not uncommon and
available for less than USD$100 from a number of retailers.
And the group in between ;-)
I had myself a lot of the maxtor xt-4380, which is around 360 MBytes.
(used them even on pdp/vax and dilog controllers)
The show up now and then on ebay ...
2:05 p.m.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 3:40 PM -0400 8/19/07, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
7.2
Mr Ian Primus wrote:
What version were you trying to load? With that high I'm guessing
OpenVMS 7.3? Well, Sridhar and I spent yesterday doing some
tinkering - I brought over my MicroVax II and we
attempted to load VMS onto it. Easier said than done.
I found out that the minimum requirement was 209MB.
BTW, glad you got home ok. Since Ian mentioned that he's using an ESDI drive,
how hard is it to
find something in the 200-500MB range these days? It has been 8+ years
since I last looked for ESDI drives and around here it wasn't easy, but
I know other areas differ.
I have a 310MB drive somewhere, but I can't seem to find it.
Or he could get an SDI or DSSI disk going. I have a whole load of 2GB
DSSI disks, one of which he could have.
Peace... Sridhar
20 Aug
20 Aug
3:33 a.m.
On 8/19/07, Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> wrote:
Well, Sridhar and I spent yesterday doing some
tinkering - I brought over my MicroVax II and we
attempted to load VMS onto it. Easier said than done.
By shuffleing parts around (and some considerable
work
getting ribbon cables through the bulkhead of a BA23),
I was able to get a Microvax II configured with:
Ethernet, ESDI w/ 70mb hard disk, and a TK50.
OK. That's slightly smaller than an RD53, which clocks in at 73MB, IIRC.
I brought this Vax to Sridhar's house. The
general
consensus both here and on the netbsd list seems to be
that the only way to boot/install a Vax is through
MOP, over Ethernet.
Consensus? I don't think that's entirely accurate. I've performed
well over a dozen installs of VMS and Ultrix entirely from magnetic
media (we never had Ethernet at Software Results).
If you have a matching standalone backup kit and copies of original
distro kits, you can boot the standalone kit and install the distro.
OTOH, if you already have have a working machine and you don't have
copies of the distro kit on TK50/16MT9/whatever, then MOP and Ethernet
is another way to go. Obviously, it's the way you've chosen, and it
should be possible, so...
Well, now that I found Ethernet,
it should have been simple. Sridhar has a Dec
InfoServer 1000. This is a really cool little device
the size of a CDROM player that can connect to a SCSI
CD drive, and Ethernet, and be bootable by networked
Vaxen.
Yep. A very nice little box. We also never got CD distros at SRC, so
I never got to play with one there, but I did see them at DECUS.
So, we cabled everything up, and immediately hit a
snag... if
anyone is trying to connect a drive to an InfoServer
1000 using the 50 pin SCSI header on the InfoServer's
board - that connector is BACKWARD! You must use a
non-keyed cable and plug it in BACKWARD in order to
make it work.
How odd. Good spotting that one.
After getting that going, and getting all the
commands
correct to boot the Vax off the InfoServer - all
seemed well. Do the base restore set from the
InfoServer, boot from the hard disk, follow the
prompts and install the rest of the distribution. This
is a 70mb ESDI disk, so after the base load, I had
about 65000 blocks free. According to the installer,
the Library, Help and DecNet phase IV will fit, just
barely, with 300 blocks to spare. It won't. The
installer runs out of space and crashes horribly.
You don't mention what version of VMS you are attempting to install.
The SPD for your version should explain what DEC drives are compatible
as system drives. I have run VMS 5.x on a MicroVAX II w/RD53. For
anything newer, I've had to jump up to an RD54 or SDI drives (I've
never had a uVAX II w/SCSI)
I did have a working VMS 6.0 system on a single RD54. It wasn't a
simple install, as I recall. We had to fiddle some stuff to make it
all fit.
At this point, it was 3:30 AM. We decided to call it
a
day (night?).... There has
to be a way to get an OS onto a Vax in 70 megabytes.
Check the SPD for your version - If it says it will install on an
RD53, you have a chance. If it does not list the RD53, then I think
you may continue to hit your head with the installer script. MicroVMS
or VMS 4.x will definitely fit. VMS 5.5 should almost certainly fit.
VMS 6.0, or newer, will probably not fit.
I wouldn't trust the installer to be precise to the block on its space
estimates, either. It was probably tested with DEC drives, and known
to work with certain models. You literally might be running into a
space problem because temp files and unpacked savesets might be
chewing up the difference in size between your ESDI drive and an RD53.
-ethan
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