DEQNA and VMS 5, was Re: MicroVax II

[Douglas Taylor]

On 7/30/2016 9:25 PM, Steven M Jones wrote:
> On 07/29/2016 19:30, Jerry Weiss wrote:
>> Note that DEQNA will not work (at all) on either version.
>> You’ll need a DELQA.
> On 07/30/2016 08:50, Paul Koning wrote:
>> Yes, VMS stopped supporting the QNA at some point because, even
>> after 12 ECOs, it could not be made to work properly.  If I
>> remember right, the issues showed up mostly in clusters; DECnet
>> didn't mind so much.
>
> The DEQNA was deprecated and for good reason, though you could still use
> it with many if not most versions of VMS 5.x. And as Paul points out if
> you're using it for lighter duty, or if it's all you've got, you might
> as well give it a shot.
>
> I was working at MIT in '90-91 and one of the labs (LIDS, I believe) had
> a cluster of VAXstation 2000s being served by a MicroVAX II. The
> VAXstations may have had a small local disk, but they were all clustered
> with if not booting from the MVII.
>
> The MVII had a DEQNA, which I discovered meant that when I was doing
> I-forget-what for them and brought the cluster back up, I had to
> sequence the booting of the VAXstations. If I booted two of them too
> close together, the MVII would crash.
>
> But it did work, if you'll accept that caveat as "working," and by that
> time if they were still running (Micro)VMS 4.x it would have stood out.
>
> I'm sure I did tell them to get a DELQA, preferably a DELQA-YM, but many
> of the labs I supported were running on a shoestring, and indentured
> graduate students to reboot as needed were often cheaper than new
> hardware...
>
> --S.
>
  I remember purchasing a DELQA in the late 1980's or early 90's and it 
was $2,500.  Wow!  I understand why you group didn't get one.

When it was delivered I took it out of the box and looked at it and 
thought that DEC was really gouging us.

Doug