Here's more info on the PDP boot problem. Since my girlfriend knows more
about it than I do, I'll let her explain :).
Tony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joan Sarah Touzet [mailto:joant_at_Cadence.COM]
> Sent: Friday, July 31, 1998 9:27 AM
> To: anthony.dellett_at_staples.com
> Subject: Forward for your mailing list
>
>
> Hi everyone!
>
> I'm sorry for my boyfriend's post lacking details on my PDP
> setup; he's
> not familiar with these systems, and was hoping there was a simple
> answer (and a simple configuration!) for dead PDP-11/23s.
> Unfortunately, no such thing ever exists... ;) (So I'm the QBus
> person, and he's the S-100 bus person. You can imagine the fights we
> have over dinner.)
>
> Anyway, all joking aside, this is a PDP-11/23 system. It's installed
> in a Charles River Data Systems backplane & enclosure, which
> contains 2
> 8" drives which I believe are double sided. (I'll open the case this
> weekend to confirm, and to CLEAN!) The system has been stripped down
> to only the essential modules: a KDF-11A (PDP-11/23 CPU with FPU
> installed, M8186), an MXV-11 multifunction serial/32K memory card with
> local refresh (M8047-CA), and a Charles River Data Systems
> FC-202 drive
> controller board. I currently have the backplane configured as such:
>
> M8186
> M8047
> FC202
>
> With no documentation on the FC202, it's hard to know whether it is
> trying to share an interrupt with the M8047, but I've been told it's a
> dropin replacement for the MXV21, so I've placed it as such. FYI, the
> backplane is quad high, with 8 rows of slots.
>
> I have been trying to boot RT-11SJ v5 from drive 0 using the RX02
> single and double density bootloaders, as well as the RX01 bootloader
> on the off-chance that these are single-sided drives. One of two
> things happens:
>
> 1) After RS/340, R7/1000, P the run light comes on, drive 0's busy
> light comes on
> (and it sounds like it seeks to Track 0) but the system hangs
> there. In this
> case, the RUN light stays lit until I send BREAK or front-panel
> toggle from ENBL
> to HLT. This happens in less than 1/2 a second. I don't hear
> any additional
> seeking from the drive.
>
> 2) After RS/340, R7/1000, P the run light comes on momentarily,
> drive 0's busy
> light comes on (and seeks to Track 0), the run light
> extinguishes, and I'm
> dumped to ODT somewhere around 1104. (The address can vary.)
> This happens in
> less than 1/2 a second.
>
> I am unconvinced that the drive is actually returning a media error
> this quickly. I've also let the system sit in state 1 for the
> approximate time I remember it took these systems to boot (30
> seconds?
> It's been 18 years...) but no kumquat.
>
> I've also entered some of the diagnostic programs I've found in the
> Microcomputer & Memories books I've got floating around (1981, 1982
> editions). Most of the tests pass. The ones that don't are
> tests like
> the "continuous stream of ASCII characters to the console prompt" and
> the "press a key, create an interrupt, and halt the program" ones.
> After trying multiple CPU and MXV11-CA modules, and still seeing the
> same erroneous behavior, I'm beginning to suspect that those programs
> don't quite work as indicated. I haven't gathered up the gumption to
> bother debugging them by hand yet.
>
> Oh, and in case you're wondering, I have the CPU module jumpered to
> power-on into ODT, and the MXV11-A module is pretty much at
> the factory
> defaults. Some of the MXV11-As that I have, have boot PROMs installed
> in them, and so the PROM address jumpers may be different than those
> listed as factory defaults, but everything else is "by the book."
>
> One final note -- this system and enclosure were working a few years
> ago in an expanded configuration (with 3rd party memory add-on modules
> I've since removed, as well as a bunch of Analog Devices-powered A/D
> boards, and an RGB Peritek video board) so I'm pretty sure
> that the bus
> is configured for a /23 already, instead of for an LSI/2 or something.
>
> Any ideas? My current plans for the weekend involve taking the
> enclosure apart and cleaning the drives within an inch of their lives,
> then trying to boot again using the RX02 bootloaders. I'm starting to
> run out of ideas.
>
> -Joan Touzet (go ahead and reply to the list, I can read it just fine
> through the archives page :P )
> ---
> - Joan Sarah Touzet | So grey is not the color I
> expected -
> - joant_at_cadence.com | On someone who's so often
> touched by grace -
> - joyce.eng.yale.edu/~joant| But always she's the spectre of
> uncertainty -
> - I still love OS/2. | I first endured, then faded,
> then embraced... -
>
>
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Received on Fri Jul 31 1998 - 08:55:22 BST