lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

[Bill Pechter]

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Bob Armstrong <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
  Lunchboxes! :-)   And there are images for new boot ROMs available for
those
which will allow you to boot from the on-board SCSI host adapter, ...

  I've heard of this, but I haven't seen it.   As I recall, the onboard SCSI
adapter uses programmed I/O (no DMA!) so it's really slow.   For a TK50
nobody would ever notice, but for the system disk it's a problem.   Better to
cluster boot one, diskless.

  FWIW, an RD54 isn't necessary.   The 2000 can easily be convinced to use
_any_ MFM drive, DEC or not.    You can get VMS V4 on a 30 meg drive, maybe
even 20, if you're determined.   Long ago I wrote up a little description of
all the VS 2000 disk formatter parameters, what they meant, and how to fake
them for non-DEC drives.   Google ancient Usenet postings if you're
interested.

Bob



The real problem I've found lately is getting VMS V4 or V3.
I used to do installs of V2, V3, and V4 when I was at DEC.

It is really hard to find VMS installation media of the pre CD variety.
We really could use an archive site for stuff like this, but HP
would probably have a fit over the copyright.

Unfortunately, getting a legal archive will probably not happen.


Bill

--
   d|i|g|i|t|a|l had it THEN.   Don't you wish you could still buy it now!
  pechter-at-gmail.com