MicroVAX 2000

From: Roger Ivie <IVIE_at_cc.usu.edu>
Date: Mon Jun 22 22:56:42 1998

> Not exactly, the SCSI port is only for a tape drive, a TK50Z (an early
> ancestor to modern DLT drives).

Gerhard Moeller has hacked together a SCSI driver for the beast. You'll
still need an MFM drive to boot from, though. He posts fairly frequently
on comp.sys.dec or comp.os.vms, so it shouldn't be difficult to track
him down with dejanews.

> A uVAX 2000 uses MFM drives, either a
> Microplis 1325/DEC RD53 (70MB) or a Maxtor 2190/DEC RD54 (159MB). In
> order to load VMS you really need the RD54, 70MB is too small.

Unless, of course, you install something like MicroVMS 4.5, which was
current when the thing came out. I've installed 7.1 on an 40MB drive,
but it was painful and it occasionally spontaneously crashes. Using
Gerhard's driver, I have a nice little package containing a 40MB drive
and a TZ30 tape drive to take on travel. I did have to do some metalwork
hacking to get the TZ30 in; there's a cable that wanders around outside
the 5.25" form factor.

> The HD
> controller is the 40 pin SMC chip on the motherboard. Oddball MFM
> format, not compatible with WD HDCs,

Well, technically, the format itself is compatible. The 2000 just adds
some extra information to control bad block replacement. The PC doesn't
know about the extra information and, consequently, doesn't add it.

Roger Ivie
ivie_at_cc.usu.edu
Received on Mon Jun 22 1998 - 22:56:42 BST