Backing up VAX/VMS? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

13 Jan 2008

...

Subject: Re: Backing up VAX/VMS?
   From: "Dave Dunfield" <dave06a at dunfield.com>
   Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 21:26:39 -0500
     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"	<cctalk at
classiccmp.org>

  > My immediate concern is that I'd like to
make a full backup
 > of the VMS 5.5 on the VLC, and also attempt restoring it to
 > another drive. 
  The VLC is simply SCSI based, isn't it? I
wouldn't bother with doing a
 file-based backup, just because the SCSI drive will probably be "quite
 small" compared to today's drives. Just attach it to some other box
 and do a block-copy of the whole drive. That'll create a file of eg.
 4GB in size with everything in it, including partitioning and all the
 file system(s).  Simple to create, simple to restore to this or an
 identical drive. 
I've already done that - I put the drive from the VLC as an external
drive on the 3100 running NETBSD and dd'd it into an image file - but
my goal is to be able to survive a drive failure, and possibly also
move it to a larger drive. The original drive in question is an RZ23,
which is a 100M DEC labled Conner drive - I have three other similar
drives, two labled RZ23 and one Conner that are "really close" but
not exactly the same - apparently there were slightly different
variations and versions.

  You'd probably do a file-based backup
additionally to be able to
 restore to a different medium, though. 
Exactly. If I understand it correctly, an image backup should restore
to any drive, and is the best way to insure that I can rebuild the
system in the future. 
For VMS an image backup can build the disk again assuming it's as least
as large as the source drive.

I keep a RZ24 and a RD54 with VMS5.4 on it as a "installer".  All I 
need to do is boot stabckup [standalone backup] and do an image copy
of the drive to the target and now the target is a usable/bootable drive.
Learned that trick at DEC as it was faster to carry a MFM or SCSI drive
around to systems with VMS preinstalled but not personalized and run 
standalone backup.  Time savings ran from hours down to 20 minutes.
Beats the TK50 for time savings.

...
    I found details of the keyboard and mouse protocol in
the back of
 a Microvax manual, and have been toying with the idea of building
 a small embedded controller to take a PC (PS2) keyboard and mouse,
 and emulate the DEC equivalents to the VAX - would anyone else be
 interested in this?  
 That's a nice little fun project, not too hard to implement.
 Personally, I do have real hardware (LK201/LK401 keyboard, VSXXX-AA
 and -GA mice and even a graphics tablet) that I use with my Linux box
 (with a simple adaptor to bring the MMJ11/Mini-DIN plug into the DE9
 world, along with the Linux drivers for that hardware.) 
I have no idea how hard DEC keyboards and mice are to find, but PC/PS2
devices are VERY plentiful, and I would imagine that there must be others
with VAXen and not the keyboard/mouse - If there's enough interest,
(or I don't find a mouse), I'll persue it further. 
Around here within 10 miles of the greater Maynard area or teh home of 
DEC they are pretty common.

The keyboard would be easy to just take a PC based keyboard with 8051
and reprogram it and change the connector.

The mouse is less common but usually easy to track down as they only 
work on DEC systems.

What can be difficult is the various cables and adaptors to get from 
the box to whatever.  Also PC DB/DP RS232 pinouts and conventions are 
NOT the same as DEC.

If your playing with DEC look for a VT1200, thats and IP/LAT based 
(etherpipe Xterm) graphic terminal that also work with DECwindows.
I tend to use that rather than fuss with multiple individual VAX 
systems.  Since all my VAXen are on a Ethernet backbone that terminal
allows for connection to any of them as charater mode or DECwindows.

Anotehr beastie to look for is microVAX2000, sometimes thought to be 
the most useless vax for speed and space.  However it can format any 
MFM drive to DEC RQDX3 format (PC cannot) and also floppies either 
RX50 or RX33.  With the right software it can bootload a VAXterm
as an ethernet windows terminal.  Oh and with an RD54 it can run VMS
So long as it has at least 6mb and keep VMS below V5.5 for space
on disk reasons.  If it has more ram but only a tiny disk then MOP
load (net boot) VMS from a host and use the local disk as either
private storage or swap/page (or both). It's small, so preserve one.

Allison