DEC Vax questions?

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Fri Sep 8 01:57:30 2000

At 09:36 PM 9/7/00 -0700, Zane wrote:
>I'm not really familiar with the BA213's, however, it appears that if he's
>got any disks they're apparently SCSI (though for some reason I was thinking
>the KZQSA doesn't "Support" SCSI Disks). If they are in fact SCSI would he
>have the numbered plugs?

Fortunately (unfortunately? :-)) I happen to be _very_ familiar with the
BA213 and this particular processor. The KA640 uses the SII chip for an
onboard DSSI interface, the disks are cabled to the CPU card through the
cabinet to the right and up under the TK70. Typically there are three
"rails" for 5-1/4" disk drives (full height) but I've also seen some that
had a "double rail" on the right side to support a couple of half height
DSSI drives (RF30 etc). The ethernet is implemented on the CPU board as
well and thus this particular CPU needs the CPU bulkhead that supplys the
connector. The follow-on to this particular processor is the KA660 which is
found in the VAX 4000/200 however peripherally it is identically equipped
(can even use the same memory) albeit nearly twice as fast. The KA640 is
equivalent to the MicroVAX III in performance although it does a bit better
on disk throughput as the DSSI bus is really 4MB/sec vs the Q-bus which
seems slower.

It was not unusual for these systems to use a DSSI port for clustering.

I should have one for sale at the VCF :-) [probably running VMS]

>Oh, and if you must run NetBSD on DEC hardware get a DECstation :^) Quit
>wasting good hardware on UNIX :^) Having said that don't ask what I run
>OpenBSD on.... :^)

Differn't strokes and all that. My take is that BSD _exists_ because of the
VAX so it at least has a right to be there (caveat the joke that NetBSD is
being ported _back_ to the VAX from the PC)

--Chuck
Received on Fri Sep 08 2000 - 01:57:30 BST