Just getting started with a MicroVax 3400

From: Geoff Roberts <geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au>
Date: Sun Apr 1 19:02:56 2001

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chad Fernandez" <fernande_at_internet1.net>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2001 3:27 PM
Subject: Just getting started with a MicroVax 3400


> I did boot the machine... well sort of. It tells me that it has
OpenVMS
> Vax version 6.2, major version 1, minor version 0.

A relatively recent, quite good, version of VMS.

> It also reports pagefile.sys, not found.
Probably on a drive that's not present.

> The licenses are expired,

VMS hobbyist license will fix that one. All my VMS licenses are
non-expiring, unlimited user, so I'm lucky. ;^)

> it was shutdown improperly,

Trivial to fix, no big deal.
> the disk is full,

just needs a house cleaning of the system disk probably

> and that a whole bunch of files are
> inaccessible,

Missing some drives, or they could even be on another system if it was
in a cluster.

>and then eventually goes back to the >>> prompt.
>
> What now?

1) get the license sorted out.
2) A clean install of VMS would be ideal, (the hobbyist license allows
you to install virtually all current versions of the VMS layered
products as well, and 48mb is a respectable amount for a microvax, so it
should handle VMS 7.x ok.
If you can't or don't want to, the one you have is almost certainly
fixable, just needs reconfiguring for the present drive config I'd say.
O/S files are unlikely to be anyware other than the system disk, so the
missing files are probably for other things you may not want or need.
Post a capture of the boot if you like, and we can take a look and see
what it's missing. (an old pc with telemate or something like that makes
a great console - and you can export the captures easily) I use a PS/2
Model 30-286 on the Vax 6000-440 at work.
3) If you prefer Unix, NetBSD runs on Microvaxen.

Cheers

Geoff Roberts
Computer Systems Manager
Saint Mark's College
Port Pirie,
South Australia
geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au
netcafe_at_tell.net.au
ICQ: 1970476
Received on Sun Apr 01 2001 - 19:02:56 BST