How do you bring up a MicroVax 2000?

From: Don Maslin <donm_at_cts.com>
Date: Thu Aug 28 23:13:00 2003

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Joe wrote:

> At 06:02 PM 8/28/03 -0500, you wrote:
> > I had a couple of VS2000 (Same box, with graohics) and routinely used
> >a nearly-standard PC-type RS-232 null modem cable.
>
> That's what I'm using.
>
> You have to short
> >two pins at the VAX side, but I do not remember which two. I found the
> >pinouts in some FAQ or other online.
>
> Hmmm. You might be onto something. I did see something about having to
> short out pins 8 and 9 when using the 9-pin port. I wonder if that might
> apply to the 25 pin port?

Joe, the following should define the cable for use with the 9-pin
port, and the attachment - appropriately scraped off before
general distribution - should provide more general info.

                                                - don


                           VAX 11/780 VAXARCHIVE

                           VS2000 hardware info page

                                 My VS2000

   The VS2000 is a small and somewhat slow "VAX in a lunch box". It is
   great for the beginner to experiment with, not as noisy and not as big
   as other VAX systems. It will run VMS, Ultrix and NetBSD, and it is
   possible to hook a graphical monitor up to it.

VAXstation/microVAX jumper

   The MicroVAX 2000 and the VAXstation 2000 really are the same machine.
   You can set a jumper on the system board to tell the system how to
   behave.

                                VS2K jumper

   On the KA410 motherboard about two inches or so directly behind the
   thin ethernet BNC connector:
     * VAXstation 2000: jumper on pins closer to thin ethernet BNC
     * MicroVAX 2000: jumper on pins farther away from the thin etherner
       BNC

   A blue jumper was used for the picture, so you could see it more
   easily here, but the original jumper is black.

   There are four serial ports on the cpu board. On the MicroVAX 2000,
   these become the console and three terminal ports. On the VAXstation
   2000, these become the printer port, keyboard, mouse and modem
   interface.

   Both machines have a mono (1024x864x1) frame buffer on the CPU board.
   You enable or disable it (read: change it from a MicroVAX 2000 to a
   VAXstation 2000 and back) by inserting or removing the jumper.

   Also this jumper toggles a flag in the configuration register (the
   "server flag") which is checked by some VAX/VMS software in order to
   decide which and how many licenses you need. This flag is used by
   NetBSD only to decide which string to diplay, "MicroVAX 2000" or
   "VAXstation 2000"

Console cable

   If the graphics board has been disabled with the jumper, the console
   is switched to the printer port. However, to get the console to appear
   on the printer port, setting the jumper is not required. It is
   possible to force a VS2000 to use a serial console without fiddling
   with the jumper on the motherboard.

   The 2000 has four serial ports: the 25-pin comm port, the 9-pin
   printer port, and two ports on the 15-pin video port for the mouse and
   keyboard. Normally, to connect a printer to the 9-pin printer port you
   use a BCC05 cable. If you use a BCC08 cable, the 2000 will use the
   9-pin port as its console. The BCC08 shorts pins 8 and 9 of the 9-pin
   port together to signal it should be used as a console. The other
   interesting pins on the 9-pin port are:
        1 - Shield GND
        2 - Transmitted data
        3 - Received data
        7 - Signal GND

   This is the console cable:
   VAX 9 pin console PC 9 pin serial PC 25 pin serial
   1 - Shield GND 2 - Received data 1 - Shield ground
   2 - Transmitted data 3 - Transmitted data 2 - Transmitted data
   3 - Received data 5 - Signal GND 3 - Received data
   7 - Signal GND 1 - DCD 7 - Signal GND
   8 - sense console 1 4 - DTR 8 - DCD
   9 - sense console 2 6 - DSR 20 - DTR
                              7 - RTS 6 - DSR
                              8 - CTS 4 - RTS
                                                     5 - CTS
The cable

VAX PC9 PC25
2 --------- 2 3

3 --------- 3 2

7 --------- 5 7

8 -+ +- 1 8
   | |
9 -+ +- 4 20
         |
         +- 6 6

         +- 7 4
         |
         +- 8 5

   Here are detailed instructions how to make a console cable.

Connectors on the system board

                    photo connectors on the system board

                 description connectors on the system board

Printer/console port (J3)
1 - ground 2 - xmit_data 3 - rcv_data
4 - no conn 5 - +12VDC 6 - no conn
7 - ground 8 - ground 9 - fer_ena (jumper to pin 8 for console)

Video Connector (J5)
1 - vid_red 2 - color_ret 3 - mono_ret
4 - +5VDC 5 - mouse_rcv 6 - kbd_grnd
7 - ground 8 - +12VDC 9 - vid_mono
10 - vid_green 11 - vid_blue 12 - -12VDC
13 - mouse_xmit 14 - kbd_rcv 15 - kbd_xmit

The interesting pins in the video connector from a serial port perspective
are:

        6 - GND for keyboard
        14- Received data from keyboard
        15 - Transmitted data to keyboard

        7 - GND for mouse
        5 - Received data from mouse
        13 - Transmitted data to mouse

There is a plastic box about the size of a cigarette pack that plugs
into the db9 printer port and db15 keyboard/mouse/video cable
connector and screws into place outside the main chassis. It takes
over that db9 and db15 and gives you three DECconnect (MMJ) connectors
for terminal ports for the MicroVAX 2000 configuration.
It is possible (if you have the connectors lying around) to build cables to
break out the serial ports without needing the DEC box. Just use the pinouts
described above.

   Comm Connector (J10) - RS232 with partial modem control
This is a standard 25-pin serial port.

   Tape Port Connector (J13) - single ended SCSI
This connector has the standard 50-pin SCSI-1 pinout.

                           Floppy/hard disk cable

   RD/RX Cable Pinout (J7)
1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,31,34,37,40,43,46,48,51,54,57,60 - ground
 2 - lospeed
 4 - rxindex
 6 - rxsel0
10 - moron
12 - rxdir
14 - rxstep
16 - rxwd
18 - rxwrgt
20 - rxtk00
22 - wrtprot
24 - rxrdata
26 - rxhsel0
28 - rxrdy
29 - rdhsel3
30 - rdhsel2
32 - rdwrgt
33 - skcompl
35 - rdtk00
36 - wrtfault
38 - rdhsel0
39 - rdhsel1
41 - rdindex
42 - rdrdy
44 - rdstep
45 - rdsel0
47 - rdsel1
49 - rddir
50 - dselack
55 - rd0_wdath
56 - rd0_wdatl
58 - rd0_rdath
59 - rd0_rdatl
8,52,53 - no conn

Expansion Disk Data Cable (J9)
2,4,6,8,11,12,15,16,19 - ground
3,5,9,10,20 - no conn
 1 - dselack
 7 - +5Vdc
13 - rd1_wdath
14 - rd1_wdatl
17 - rd1_rdath
18 - rd1_rdatl

   MFM Hard disk connectors
The other end of the cable must have this pinout:
Hard disk 34 pin connector
 4 - head select 2
 6 - write gate
 8 - seek complete
10 - track 0
12 - write fault
14 - head select 0
18 - head select 1
20 - index
22 - ready
24 - step
26 - drive select 1
28 - drive select 2
30 - drive select 3
32 - drive select 4
34 - direction in
1-33 ground (odd numbers)
2,16,30,32 reserved

Hard disk 20 pin connector
 1 - drive selected
 5 - key
13 - +mfm write data
14 - -mfm write data
17 - +mfm read data
18 - -mfm read data
2,4,6,8,10,11,12,15,16,19,20 ground
3,5,7,9 reserved
all other pins unused.

Floppy drive 24 pin connector
 2 - mode select
 4 - in use
 6 - drive select 3
 8 - index
10 - drive select 0
12 - drive select 1
14 - drive select 2
16 - motor on
18 - direction select
20 - step
22 - write data
24 - write gate
26 - track 0
28 - write protect
30 - read data
32 - side 1 select
34 - ready/disk change/open
1-33 ground (odd numbered pins)

                                RD32 jumpers

   This is where the jumper on the RD32 hard disk should be, jumpered as
   the third of four drives.

   The floppy drive should be jumpered as ID0, the first drive.

Formatting the hard disk

   It is very useful to have a VS2000 around, if only to format hard
   disks with. For a MFM hard disk to work in a MicroVAX it must have a
   very peculiar format written to it. The VS2000 and the Q-bus RQDX3
   controller for the MicroVAX II et al require this format to be
   present. The VS2000 is the only DEC device that can write this format
   without expensive hard to get software: the formatter is present in
   the VS2000 ROM under the TEST 70 command. If the formatting of a disk
   you are using on a RQDX controller is damaged, you can format the disk
   in a VS2000 and hook it back up to the RQDX controller, the disk will
   work like new. Click on this link to read how to format a disk in the
   VS2000.

Thanks

   Thanks to Dave McGuire (mcguire_at_digex.net), Rick
   (rick_at_snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca), Roger Ivie (ivie_at_cc.usu.edu), Bertram
   Bach (), whose posts to the NetBSD/VAX mailing list provided much of
   the above info.

Related links

   More info on the MicroVAX / VAXstation 2000 can be found in the
   MicroVAX / VAXstation FAQ:
     * VS2000 specifications
     * More VS2000 details
     * The WWW MicroVAX/VAXstation FAQ

   Other interesting links are:
     * VS2000 park.se
     * Johannes Computerliste - DEC
     * MicroVAX and VAXstation 2000 information.
     * serial cables
     * Ctrl-C's VAX computers
     * Information related to DEC equipment
     * VAXstation 2000
     _________________________________________________________________

[demime 1.01a removed an attachment of type APPLICATION/ZIP which had a NAME of VS2K.ZIP]
Received on Thu Aug 28 2003 - 23:13:00 BST

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