[HECnet] Bringing up a MicroVAX 3100-80

[John H. Reinhardt]

On 3/30/2020 10:39 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
> On 3/30/20 11:34 PM, John H. Reinhardt wrote:
>> The file downloaded from HPE for OpenVMS V7.3 is a Backup saveset and
>> can't be written directly to a CD to create a bootable disk. My disk
>> image I got from an actual OpenVMS VAX V7.3 CD.  Assuming you have a
>> disk image you can use then you can follow this. It's very simple on the
>> Mac
>    Waitaminute...so the disk image that you generated by reading a
> bootable 7.3 CD differs from the HPE-distributed 7.3 file?  Does the
> latter not contain standalone backup at the beginning, etc?

Yes.  The file I downloaded from HP (just two weeks ago) is a backup save set zipped into an archive. It's not a disk image. Well, unless the backup saveset is a of a diskimage. But I don't think so.

When you download from HPE from the site they give you when you get the Hobbyist licenses, you get a file named "VAXVMS073.ZIP". So you unzip it and you get a file called "vaxvms073.bck".  If I try burning that to CD on my Mac if says I need a 571.1MV or larger CD.  I put a 700MB CD-R in the drive and then it fails saying it's too big and I should remove some files.  It also thinks the contents being written to CD is called "Untitled Disk.fpbf".  I haven't Googled that yet.  So I changed the filename to "vaxvms073.ISO" just to see wht pahhens.  The Mac happily writes the CD.  When I mount it on the VAX I get:

$ mount /over=id dka500:
%MOUNT-F-NOHOMEBLK, Files-11 home block not found on volume
-MOUNT-I-VOLIDENT, label = '............', owner = '............', format = '............'

So I know it's got no Files-11 file system on it.  I re-mount it foreign and do a dump /block of dka500:

$ dump /blocks /page dka500:

Dump of device DKA500: on 30-MAR-2020 22:23:45.63

Logical block number 0 (00000000), 512 (0200) bytes

  00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001 00010001 08000100 ................................ 000000
  00004B43 422E3337 30534D56 5841560D 00000000 00007E00 86716A6E 00010101 ....njq..~.......VAXVMS073.BCK.. 000020
  00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................................ 000040
  00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................................ 000060
  00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................................ 000080
  00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................................ 0000A0
  00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................................ 0000C0
  08DC0000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ..............................Ü. 0000E0
  2E333730 534D5658 41560001 000D0101 00000000 00000000 00000000 000100F0 ð.....................VAXVMS073. 000100
  494C414F 4E2F5946 49524556 2F454741 4D492F50 554B4341 42000200 464B4342 BCKF...BACKUP/IMAGE/VERIFY/NOALI 000120
  45535F45 5641532F 4B43422E 33373053 4D565841 56203A24 4D4F5244 43205341 AS CDROM$: VAXVMS073.BCK/SAVE_SE 000140
  05000420 20202020 2050554B 43414200 04000C30 30303536 3D4B434F 4C422F54 T/BLOCK=65000....BACKUP      ... 000160
  09322E37 56000800 04080000 07000200 9FA5F05B E45C5000 06000800 01004000 . at .......P\ä[ð¥............V7.2. 000180
  4B442430 3031245F 000B000B 80000000 000A0004 3A3A584F 42474F44 5F000900 ..._DOGBOX::............_$100$DK 0001A0
  0002000A 000E0002 00007E00 000D0004 31303052 32375058 41000C00 093A3041 A0:....AXP72R001.....~.......... 0001C0
  00000000 00000001 00110002 20202020 20202020 20202020 0010000C 03DF000F ..ß.....            ............ 0001E0


So it's definitely a VMS Backup save set.  Based on the dump it's an image backup of the V7.3 CD.  But you can't get to it unless you already have an OpenVMS system to run it through Backup.  So it's no good for a Hobbyist with no other machine yet. Oops.


>> When writing the CD, you don't need to worry about the 512 vs 2048 byte
>> block problem.  That's only for the CD drive hooked to the VAX.  An
>> RRD42 has the appropriate block size.  The only thing I don't know is if
>> an RRD42 is too early of a drive to handle a CD-R or not.
>    I've used CD-Rs in RRD42s.  It helps to burn them at no faster than 8x.
>
>    Yes, I know, the speed at which you burn it shouldn't make any
> difference.  But I was beating my head against a wall trying to boot a
> DECstation from a CD-R disk, three tries, and a friend told me to try
> the burn again but restrict the speed to 8x.  I was skeptical, but I
> tried it, and it worked, and I've had no issues since.
>
>                    -Dave
>

-- 
John H. Reinhardt