MicroVAX 3100 booting question...

From: healyzh_at_aracnet.com <(healyzh_at_aracnet.com)>
Date: Fri Apr 27 17:30:56 2001

> > for you to see (btw there ARE NO DISK LIGHTS on Suns, Vaxes
>
> I think that rather depends on the Sun or the VAX (and how much hardware
> hacking has been done to it ;-)). However, whatever the disk lights are
> doing, you still don't turn off the power without shutting the machine
> down properly.

Well, none of my Sun boxes have disk lights, but since I'm almost
exclusevely using StorageWorks shelves for disks on my OpenVMS systems,
including one of the two VAXen currently in use, they do a fair amount of
flashing. They defininitly do a bunch after I type SHUTDOWN.

I think my two boxes of RA72's and RA73's also have lights, but it's been
months since the MicroVAX III has been up, and it's now buried in the back
of one of my Storage Units.

> > You're being a bit clue< here.
>
> Agreed.. This reminds me a bit of a thread we had a few years back about
> static damage to chips and how some people don't bother to take
> precautions and have never zapped a chip. Point is, the damage often
> shows up months later.

Agreed, also. As for the Anti-Static I often don't take as good of
precautions on that as I should, however, I make sure to never touch any
conductors on the board, and that I touch metal on the case first. Plus I
always have a good supply of antistatic bags around and always keep the
boards, chips, or memory sticks in one. I should always use a Anti-Static
strap, and I sometimes will, but not always :^( Still at least I'm taking
some precautions.

> As it can be with filesystems. You may think there's no problem, and one
> day you either find an important file has been corrupted months earlier and
> you didn't know about it, or that the last time you turned the machine
> off without syncing you did some damage (for all it was OK the 100 times
> before that).

Interesting point here. On a related note, if you use a Mac, it's in your
best interest to have a 3rd party disk check program and to check and
optimize your filesystems regularly. Trust me, I know that you're likely to
regret it if you don't! As much as I like Mac's I've got to admit the
Filesystem is to delicate.

> > You can swap PC keyboards and mice hot until you happen
> > to blow the 5 volt fuse... and then you learn YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO.
>
> I once pulled the Unibus memory card out of a running PDP11/45 -- with
> the power on. I made a mistake. The system crashed of course (no memory....)
> but no hardware damage was done.
>
> Yes, I was lucky. This does not mean I make a habit of hot-swapping
> Unibus boards (or anything else for that matter). I prefer to do things
> properly, since I'm the poor person who'll have to sort out the mess
> anyway...

OK, now you've got me curious, did you pull the wrong board, or forget the
power was on? I've heard of people hot-swapping Unibus and Q-Bus boards,
but there is no way I'm that gutsy! Shoot, pulling hotswapable drives makes
me nervous!

                                Zane
Received on Fri Apr 27 2001 - 17:30:56 BST