VMS 8.4 Alpha Hobbyist disk images

[Douglas Taylor]

Thanks for helping me understand what this is.
My experience has been with Q-bus based Vaxes and this is very different 
in that SCSI controllers for Q-bus are rare while in this Alpha machine 
I've got too many!

You were right about the MIN boot, I went into SYSBOOT> SET STARTUP_P1 
"      " to reset it from MIN.  Now the console comes up in DecWindows 
and all the devices are visible.
Now I know that the floppy is DVA0:.  This is a nice computer.

Doug

On 2/2/2018 7:55 PM, Adrian Graham via cctech wrote:
>> An update to this.
>>
>> I picked up the Alphaserver today, powered up fine.  I reset the system password so I could log in.
>>
>> It is running OpenVMS 7.1 and has 7 disks in the Storageworks box.
>>
>> When I log in only the boot disk shows up from the $ show dev command.  Nothing else, no CD, no tape which are all there.
>>
>> On powerup it shows:
>>
>> bus 2 slot 0 pka Qlogic ISP10x0
>> bus 2 slot 1 ewa DecChip 21040-AA
>> bus 2 slot 2 pua DEC KFPSA
>> bus 0 slot 11 dra Mylex DAC960
>> bus 0 slot 12 drb Mylex DAC960
>> bus 3 slot 0 pkb Qlogic ISP10x0
> You’ve got a KZP*A, DE500, DSSI, pair of KZPAC (probably) and another KZP*A
>
>> I think 4 of the storageworks disks are in a Raid in the storageworks (DRB).  The DRA raid must have been external since on startup it spends time waiting for it and finally gives up.
> I’d pull whichever KZPAC isn’t connected to anything any more along with the KFPSA which will speed up INIT if nothing else.
>
>> In console mode:
>>
>>>>> show dev
>> DKA400 RRD45
>> DKB400 RZ28
>> DKB500 RZ29
>> DKB600 RZ29
>> DRA0 4 member RAID 5
>> DRA1 1 member JBOD
>> DRB0 4 member RAID 5
>> DVA0
>> MKA500 TLZ07
>> EWA0    mac address
>> PKA0 SCSI bus
>> PKB0 SCSI bus
>> PIA0 DSSI Bus ID 3
> The first KZP*A has the CDROM and tape drive so that’s probably a KZPAA (Qlogic QLA1040), the internal disk shelf must be split bus if you’ve got 7 drives in there, 3 on the 2nd KZPAA (or BA) and 4 on the KZPAC.
>
>> My desire is to setup this machine and use it, however, I don't want to undo things I can't put back together again.  Any thoughts or advice?
> See above :) Take out boards that aren’t connected to anything. I assume you’re doing a MINIMUM boot which would explain the lack of devices when you log in?
>
> Pictures may help too.
>
> Cheers,
>
> —
> Adrian/Witchy
> Binary Dinosaurs - Celebrating Computing History from 1972 onwards
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>