Re: NetBSD on a VAX 3100 (DV-31AT1-A)
Rod Smallwood via cctalk wrote: > Hi All > > With the upcoming demise of VMS/VAX I thought I might give NetBSD/vax a try. > > Downloading a bootable image and burning it onto a CD was not a problem. > > On the 3100 with attached RRD42 and SCSI drive RZ26l the CD duly booted > ito the NetBSD install menu. > > All of versions 7,8 and 9. failed after partitioning at the point where > the system is copied to the hard disk. > > Has anybody successfuly installed NetBSD on a VAX. If which version on > which VAX > > Rod Smallwood > > > -- > I had several kinds of trouble installing NetBSD on Vaxstations in the past. If I remember correctly one of the reasons for an failing install was some trouble related to the cache and the SCSI Controller. There is a maling list to which you should subscribe and report the problem: port-...@netbsd.org. I think personally that NetBSD-vax is in a not so good state... This is from 03/30/2013, there is (was?) a bunch of similar problems on VS3100/M76, or VS4000/90 too, stray interrupts, segfailts in the install script and so on. If the system is finally running, most of the problems are gone, but installing is a special thing it seems... >HI, >I've got some Vaxstations lately and today I've tried to install >NetBSD-6.1_RC2 on a VS3100M38 with 24Mbytes of RAM. >Disk is an IBM DCAS 34330, 4Gbyte. > >I can do what I want, the install.ram is crashing while labeling the >disk, >regardless if I have overwritten the disk with zeros before ot not. > >This is the last screen: > > Status: Command ended on signal >Command: disklabel -w -r -f /tmp/disktab sd0 'DCAS-34330 ' > Hit enter to continue > >uid 0, pid 7, command disklabel, on /: file system full > >/: write failed, file system is full >pid 7 (disklabel): user write of 9272@0x1a2000 at 67912 failed: 28 > >--- > >I had all kinds of similar errors in the tris before that, illegal >instrcutions and so on. > >The disk is ok, OpenBSD is running fine on that beast and I'm unable to >install more RAM as the two boards that are currently in that machine to >get more than 24MB. > >What is the right way to install NetBSD on such a M38? > >Kind Regards, > >Holm > -- Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583 i...@tsht.de Fax +49 3731 74200 Tel +49 3731 74222 Mobil: 0172 8790 741
Re: NetBSD on a VAX 3100 (DV-31AT1-A)
I was able to MOP boot my VS3100 and 4000 with NetBSD-8.0 and do an install. MOP boot host was a NetBSD install on x86 VM -- I usually use an OpenBSD system for MOP booting, but apparently the MOP boot format has changed slightly in recent releases (I forget which has changed their format). I've heard from a few other hobbyists that they've also banged their heads against that conflict! NetBSD was stable enough for me to get an IRC client up and join #netbsd on FreeNode. Thanks, Jonathan On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 6:20 AM Holm Tiffe via cctalk wrote: > Rod Smallwood via cctalk wrote: > > > Hi All > > > > With the upcoming demise of VMS/VAX I thought I might give NetBSD/vax a > try. > > > > Downloading a bootable image and burning it onto a CD was not a problem. > > > > On the 3100 with attached RRD42 and SCSI drive RZ26l the CD duly booted > > ito the NetBSD install menu. > > > > All of versions 7,8 and 9. failed after partitioning at the point where > > the system is copied to the hard disk. > > > > Has anybody successfuly installed NetBSD on a VAX. If which version on > > which VAX > > > > Rod Smallwood > > > > > > -- > > > > > I had several kinds of trouble installing NetBSD on Vaxstations in the > past. If I remember correctly one of the reasons for an failing install > was some trouble related to the cache and the SCSI Controller. > > There is a maling list to which you should subscribe and report the > problem: port-...@netbsd.org. > I think personally that NetBSD-vax is in a not so good state... > > This is from 03/30/2013, there is (was?) a bunch of similar problems > on VS3100/M76, or VS4000/90 too, stray interrupts, segfailts in the > install script and so on. > If the system is finally running, most of the problems are gone, but > installing is a special thing it seems... > > > >HI, > >I've got some Vaxstations lately and today I've tried to install > >NetBSD-6.1_RC2 on a VS3100M38 with 24Mbytes of RAM. > >Disk is an IBM DCAS 34330, 4Gbyte. > > > >I can do what I want, the install.ram is crashing while labeling the > >disk, > >regardless if I have overwritten the disk with zeros before ot not. > > > >This is the last screen: > > > > Status: Command ended on signal > >Command: disklabel -w -r -f /tmp/disktab sd0 'DCAS-34330 ' > > Hit enter to continue > > > > >uid 0, pid 7, command disklabel, on /: file system full > > > >/: write failed, file system is full > >pid 7 (disklabel): user write of 9272@0x1a2000 at 67912 failed: 28 > > > >--- > > > >I had all kinds of similar errors in the tris before that, illegal > >instrcutions and so on. > > > >The disk is ok, OpenBSD is running fine on that beast and I'm unable to > >install more RAM as the two boards that are currently in that machine to > >get more than 24MB. > > > >What is the right way to install NetBSD on such a M38? > > > >Kind Regards, > > > >Holm > > > > > > -- > Technik Service u. Handel Tiffe, www.tsht.de, Holm Tiffe, > Freiberger Straße 42, 09600 Oberschöna, USt-Id: DE253710583 > i...@tsht.de Fax +49 3731 74200 Tel +49 3731 74222 Mobil: 0172 8790 741 > >
Re: MSV11-Q info and interesting observation
Yes very common with Dram arrays. Similar to write enable on Chipselect for Sram arrays. Allison On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 4:20 PM Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > Noel, you're incredible! Thanks for fuzzing this out, I've been working > on chiming clocks as of late and put this board on the back burner, but > with this swapping out the bad chip should be a piece of cake. > > Thank you again! > CZ > > On 3/14/2020 4:12 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > So, a while back someone had a broken MSV11-Q QBUS memory card, and > needed > > info on them. I said I'd provide same, but then got distracted. Well, I > > finally got to it, and it's been added to the CHW page for them: > > > >https://gunkies.org/wiki/MSV11-Q_QBUS_memory > > > > It includes a table which says which chip each bit in the memory is > stored > > in (which is what one needs to fix one which is basically working, but > has > > some bad bits). > > > > > > While working out that table, I ran into a hitch, which is a good part > of why > > it took so long. The hitch, when solved, revealed something mildly > interesting. > > > > The hitch was in my process for finding out which bit was stored in > which chip. > > I whipped up a simple loop to store a word with a single '1' bit, and the > > rest 0's; I set that running, and used a 'scope probe on the DIn pins to > find > > out which column of chips held bit 0, etc. So far, so good. I then > looked on the > > -Wr pin, to find out which row of chips held which banks. > > > > Not so good! There were pulses on -Wr for _all_ the banks, no matter > which > > address I tried to write to. > > > > Eventually I worked out what was going on: when writing data, the MSV11-Q > > sends a 'write' signal to _all_ the banks, and selects the one to > _actually_ > > use by use of the RAS signal. I'm not certain why DEC did this, but since > > there is no explicit 'read' signal on the DRAM chip, and likely the data > > outputs from all the banks are wire-OR'd together, use of RAS to select > the > > desired bank works for read, and also for write. > > > > Has anyone else seen this trick used anywhere else? > > > > Noel > > >
Re: Prime 50-Series emulator announcement
Dennis, On Fri, Mar 13, 2020 at 11:36:44AM -0400, Dennis Boone via cctalk wrote: > There's a fair amount of material that we don't have packaged up for > download yet, including one or two versions of INFORMATION, some text > games, and most of a PULSE library from the Rev 17? era. The Georgia Tech > Software Tools environment is available. There are several full screen > editors, including Emacs and the Sheffield editor. We have the indexed > file handler, but not the DBMS. It sounds like we have a lot to look forward to. I have a fondness for databases, and full screen text based data entry apps, so INFORMATION and the forms management system sound particularly interesting to me. I've read through a bit of the FORMS users guide. I only found FORMS installed on the Rev 19 sample system so far, but haven't checked all the systems yet. I haven't tried to do anything with FORMS aside from listing existing forms. There weren't any. The only info I could find on INFORMATION was its product bulletin. Was it The Prisoner's title sequence where a voice kept repeating INFORMATION ... INFORMATION? For some reason that came to mind. I need to get around to watching that series. I've only seen a bit of the first episode. -- Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://www.Lassie.xyz http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum.
Re: Prime 50-Series emulator announcement
I realize I told a lie the other day. INFORMATION is actually installed on the rev21 public emulator, and the samples. A few manuals are online. I feel like I've seen one or two more that I can't find just now. I haven't gotten these integrated into sysovl.info yet: http://yagi.h-net.org/prime_manuals/pdr3905_inform_refgde_1981.pdf http://yagi.h-net.org/prime_manuals/pdr3906_perform_refgde_1980.pdf http://yagi.h-net.org/prime_manuals/prirun_scans/Prime%20Information%20Update%205.3.2%201983.pdf You can think of MIDASPLUS as similar to ISAM. A _lot_ of shops used it. The application I supported really should have been on a real database, as we had cross-file relations, but that was "too slow" and "too expensive", so it was on MIDASPLUS, and we suffered through the inevitable partial updates. MIDASPLUS was preceded by MIDAS, which was preceded by KIDA. KIDA was originally part of the base os. MIDAS stands for "multiple index data access system", iirc. I _think_ the distributed systems management stuff (DSM) may have internally used FORMS, so you might grovel through those bits on the rev23 machine. I saw a few episodes of The Prisoner many years ago, but don't remember the title sequence. De
Re: MSV11-Q info and interesting observation
On Sat, Mar 14, 2020 at 2:12 PM Noel Chiappa via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > the MSV11-Q > sends a 'write' signal to _all_ the banks, and selects the one to > _actually_ > use by use of the RAS signal. > [...] > Has anyone else seen this trick used anywhere else? > Yes, that's very common. If you have multiple banks, you have to do some form of address decode for /RAS [*]. If you're doing that, there's no point to having another decode system for /WR. Eric * Alternately, /RAS could be common and /CAS decoded. That effectively does a refresh cycle on all non-selected banks, but using whatever the row address just happens to be, so unless you add a LOT of additional complexity, it's not very helpful, and increases power dissipation. I've only seen a few designs that did this, and there didn't seem to be any good reason for it.
