18 Mar
2006
18 Mar
'06
2:09 a.m.
So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA?
Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD?
On 3/18/06, 9000 VAX <vax9000 at gmail.com> wrote:
On 3/17/06, Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at
gmail.com> wrote:
On 3/18/06, Jochen Kunz <jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de> wrote:
There was one with pictures on ebay not long ago. Actually there are two on
ebay right now without picture.
In the same vein, dare I ask: Is there a PCI-based UDA clone or a RQDX
Interresting. I did not know this. Now I
remember. I have two PCI DSSI
adapters that are based on the NCR / Symbios 53C825 Wide SCSI chip. But
what I had in mind when I wrote the above was...
Even more interesting is the existence of PCI-based DSSI adapters??!!!
I didn't know this.
Pray tell more. Pictures, specs, brand/model, etc. clone?
11:12 a.m.
On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX wrote:
On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at
gmail.com> wrote:
Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what
OS has drivers for these things?
I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else?
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA?
Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD?
They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. 
1:53 p.m.
At 11:12 AM -0500 3/18/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX
wrote:
I'm guessing that the only other OS that *might* support them would
be NetBSD, though that seems a little doubtful.
I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller,
and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The other
odd-ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI
controller makes far more sense. All DSSI talks to is a few hard
drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster
interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother.
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/ |
On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at
gmail.com> wrote:
Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what
OS has drivers for these things?
I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else?
So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA?
Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD?
They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. 
2:15 p.m.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI
DSSI controller,
and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists.
The KFPSA definitely exists. Remember that PCI was a common interface
on many Alphas. Tapping into existing DSSI clusters was obviously
seen as sufficiently important by someone. There was also an
EISA DSSI interface: the KFESB - in fact I think I have one of
those.
The other
odd-ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI
controller makes far more sense.
I have a CIPCA too, I think. I think mine is the -AA, the one
that takes up a PCI slot but also needs an EISA slot so it can
suck up some more power.
All DSSI talks to is a
few hard
drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster
interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother.
Some DSSI interfaces could be used for SCA (cluster) traffic
and some could not. the only one I'm confident could NOT (off the
top of my head) was the KFQSA (Qbus DSSI interface). I am reasonably
sure that the KFPSA could be used as a DSSI cluster interface and
obviously the CIPCA would be pretty useless if it could not handle
cluster traffic!
Antonio
--
Antonio carlini
arcarlini at iee.org
2:20 p.m.
On Mar 18, 2006, at 11:53 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 11:12 AM -0500 3/18/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
PCI to CI interface is called CIPCA-BA. Here:
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/options/asDS25/asds25_%20%20-
cipca-ba.html
Mike
On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000
VAX wrote:
I'm guessing that the only other OS that *might* support them would
be NetBSD, though that seems a little doubtful.
I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller,
and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The other odd-
ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI
controller makes far more sense. All DSSI talks to is a few hard
drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster
interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother.
Zane On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at
gmail.com> wrote:
Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what
OS has drivers for these things?
I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else?
So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA?
Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD?
They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe.
3:11 p.m.
On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:53:24AM -0800, Zane H. Healy wrote:
At 11:12 AM -0500 3/18/06, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
Sure it was, or at least the installation manuals Digital had for
MicroVAXes with DSSI described how to cluster pairs of VAXes with it,
either for the MicroVAX 3x00 QBUS machines that had DSSI on their CPU
board, or VAX 4000/[2-7]00's
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX
wrote:
I'm guessing that the only other OS that *might* support them would
be NetBSD, though that seems a little doubtful.
I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller,
and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The other
odd-ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI
controller makes far more sense. All DSSI talks to is a few hard
drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster
interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother. On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at
gmail.com> wrote:
Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what
OS has drivers for these things?
I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else?
So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA?
Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD?
They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe. 
6:08 p.m.
On 18/03/06, Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 10:53:24AM -0800, Zane H.
Healy wrote:
I have had two Vax 4000's clustered with dssi, they can also share
drives a lot quicker this way. I would guess that the pci dssi was for
people that where upgrading machines and didn't want to invest in
upgrading drives as well.
Dan
At 11:12 AM -0500 3/18/06, Patrick Finnegan
wrote:
Sure it was, or at least the installation manuals Digital had for
MicroVAXes with DSSI described how to cluster pairs of VAXes with it,
either for the MicroVAX 3x00 QBUS machines that had DSSI on their CPU
board, or VAX 4000/[2-7]00's
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
On Sat, Mar 18, 2006 at 03:41:57AM -0500, 9000 VAX
wrote:
I'm guessing that the only other OS that *might* support them would
be NetBSD, though that seems a little doubtful.
I think this is the first I've ever heard of a PCI DSSI controller,
and I'm a little surprised that such a thing exists. The other
odd-ball one would be the PCI CI controller, the thing is, that a CI
controller makes far more sense. All DSSI talks to is a few hard
drives, and tape drives. I don't think it can be used as a cluster
interface (if it did the controller would make sense), so why bother. On 3/18/06, Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at
gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So this is an official DEC product? KFPSA?
> Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux, *BSD?
They were made for Alpha computers, which use PCI bus, I believe.
Of course, they're PCI, that's right in the subject. But what
OS has drivers for these things?
I guess VMS probably does, and maybe Tru64... anything else? 
21 Mar
21 Mar
4:03 a.m.
On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 15:09:34 +0800
"Wai-Sun Chia" <waisun.chia at gmail.com> wrote:
Which modern PC-based *nix does this work on? Linux,
*BSD?
The problem is not supporting the PCI DSSI adapter, the problem is
supporting the protocols spoken on DSSI / CI. I can't remember about
Tru64, I think VMS was (is?) the only OS to support PCI DSSI / CI
adapters.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
6680
days inactive
6683
days old
8 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
a.carlini＠ntlworld.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jkunz＠unixag-kl.fh-kl.de -
mcesari＠comcast.net -
pat＠computer-refuge.org -
vax9000＠gmail.com -
waisun.chia＠gmail.com -
williams.dan＠gmail.com