Looking for VAX FAQs

From: J. Buck Caldwell <buck_c_at_polygon.com>
Date: Wed Jul 8 11:06:42 1998

Ethan Dicks wrote:

> > Best way to go: Find a Unibus SCSI controller. Rare, expensive, but well
> > worth the cost.
>
> I haven't seen one that I could afford. I'd love to have SCSI on *any* VAX.
> I'd even considered building my own (I used to manufacture a Q-Bus/Unibus/VAXBI
> line of synchronous serial cards based on the 68000). The thing that held me
> back was a lack of knowledge of how to emulate an MSCP device with something
> that is *not* register compatible with an RQDX[123] or UDA50. I have written
> VMS device drivers from scratch, but not _disk_ device drivers.

Personally, if it came to building a board from scratch, I'd have to say I'd prefer a MSCP
compatible Dual IDE controller. Drives are cheaper. I can just see sticking four 5g IDE drives into
my BA123 - 20 g of space, for less than a grand. Gee, I wonder if the power supply could handle it
(snicker). There are MSCP docs somewhere out their on the web - or you could talk to the NetBSD-vax
people, I believe at least one of them has the MSCP handbook. I'd buy it if you built it. (well, a
Q-bus version, anyway)

--
J. Buck Caldwell
               Engineer - Technical Support - Webmaster
Polygon, Inc.         email:buck_c_at_polygon.com   phone: (314) 432-4142
PO Box 8470            http://www.polygon.com/     fax: (314) 997-9696
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Received on Wed Jul 08 1998 - 11:06:42 BST

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