Yes, it was the CONSOLE tape (with microcode, among other bits) to which I was referring, but of course that's just the first step towards getting an OS to boot. Thanks for the tape-pointers Andrea. I had found the upper-level dead-link in the past but hadn't tried to directly access its folder. Next time :->. Is see that according to the "contents.txt" that BE-T173I-ME has a volume-label of "CONSOLE" with owner-label of "RELEASE". A cursory binary examination reveals the string "CONSOLE RELEASE DECFILE11B", regarding which the last item seems to indicate an OpenVMS Files-11 Structure Level 2 or 5 volume. So I guess that all makes sense :->. I've read http://members.iinet.net.au/~alw1746/awhome/publications/speed730.html on speeding up the 11/730 bootstrap and I do see all of the files that it references as being on BE-T173I-ME according to "contents.txt". I'm thinking that the microcode is what is segmented into the .CPU files? Can anyone explain (or point me to a document explaining) the functions of each of the following (listed in the recommended "fast boot" order-of-use)? I can guess at some ("IDC" is clearly the Integrated Disk Controller). CONSOL.EXE POWER.CMD CONSLE.CPU MMIE.CPU POWER.CPU FP.CPU BITFLD.CPU CM.CPU BASIC.CPU QUEUE.CPU IDC.CPU GETVMB.EXE ! FAST BOOT PROGRAM DEFBOO.CMD VMB.EXE DQ1BOO.CMD Yes, I too would appreciate any information/pointers along these lines too! On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 12:30 PM, shadoooo <shadoooo at gmail.com> wrote: