Booting RSX-11M On A PDP-11/34

From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh_at_aracnet.com>
Date: Sun Jun 10 07:04:54 2001

>I have pretty much no experience with DEC systems, or at least PDP-11s
>anyway. I have an 11/34 with three RL01 drives (only two are connected). The
>system works fine, I get the register printout on the console LA120, and I
>can examine, deposite, etc. When I put the RSX-11M pack in the RL01 drive,
>and ready it, I don't get any fault ligtht or anything. When I get
>everything set up, I tell the system to boot from drive 0. The light on the
>drive flashes rapidly, and I can hear it spinning. Then I get a lot of line
>feeds on the console, along with a few seemingly random characters, usually
>lower case Rs, Ss, and Ms. So, if anyone can tell me what I am doing wrong,
>or what I need to be doing, I would greatly appreciate it.
>
>Thanks,
>Owen

It sounds to me as if you're doing everything right. You're just not
getting the output on the console you should be. This has me wondering a
few things.

Did you get everything as a whole or is this something you're trying to put
together from a variety of sources? If you did get this as a whole, is it
put together in the same manner it was when this was a working
configuration. Do you have all the packs mounted that were normally
mounted when it was in a working condition.

What version of RSX-11M? Do you know the actual state of your disk pack?

Do you have a terminal besides the LA120? Do you have Serial lines besides
the one the LA120 is on?

Do you have hardware documentation on the 11/34?

Now for anyone reading this, can the 11/34 do something funky like change
the speed of it's console line without having to use hardware jumpers? I
don't think it can, but from the fact that all that's being printed out,
that's my first thought, however, the fact everything looks to work before
trying to boot RSX this doesn't look to be the problem.

                                Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh_at_aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| healyzh_at_holonet.net (alternate)  | Classic Computer Collector |
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Received on Sun Jun 10 2001 - 07:04:54 BST

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