Another VaxStation 3100 revisited...

From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch_at_30below.com>
Date: Mon Apr 24 20:04:35 2000

Rumor has it that Zane H. Healy may have mentioned these words:

>Well, since it the default boot is set to ESA0 it was most likely set up
>for a network boot off of a cluster disk. That means you've most likely
>got a RZ23 for the Hard Disk, which was used for the pagefile and swapfile.
>While it's possible to fit OpenVMS on a 100Mb drive, you'll probably want
>to find a larger drive. I've found a RZ25 is comfortable on a 3100 for a
>little light compiling.

I just got (one of) my VaxStation 3100's running, but don't have any
docfiles available for it yet... but I have an IIRC RZ26 (it's 540Meg,
anyway) as the main drive that I _wanted_ to use for VMS and I have an RZ24
(230Meg) that I put Ultrix on just to tinker with (and it fit w/50M to
spare!).

I have a bajangle[1] of VMS CD's (from a friend) but only one boots
(labeled VMS 7.1 Binaries)... It seems to boot VMS (for the very little
I've ever seen of VMS -- Why didn't I pay attention over the last few
years... ;-) but it's a very stripped VMS as the only command that seems to
exist is the "b" command, which seems to invoke some form of backup command
that can take a "/IMAGE" parameter that I can't seem to get working...

Does VMS install from a backup type file, or do I not have any actual
install CD's?

BTW, main disk is DKA0, subdisk is DKA200, floppy is DKA500, and CDROM is
DKB400.

Ultrix seems to run fine from DKA200, but seems kinda slow... (of course,
this is in comparison to running Linux on a dual-processor P2-350 w/256Meg
RAM, but in these days of instant gratification... ;-)

With apologies to Dire Straits, "I want my... I want my... I want my
VMS!!!" ;-)

BTW, when the machine boots (to the ROM monitor) I get the F...E...D...
etc.. with all dots until it gets to (IIRC, machine home, me work):

3_..2_..1?..

and then spits out what appears to be a memory address. Ethernet's not
hooked up -- any chance one of those is the network interface saying
"Hello... Anybody out there?" and any speculation as if the machine might
have some heartburn?

Thanks Tons,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger

[1] "a bajangle of" is hereby declared as "at least 15 different..." ;-)

P.S. I might have asked this once before, but a website or two with online
docs would be *much* appreciated! (I tried the obvious ones, like
www.vms.org and www.decus.org, but I didn't find much in technical info...)
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger   ---   sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right???  Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
Received on Mon Apr 24 2000 - 20:04:35 BST

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