Vaxstation 2000 and VXT software, 4 plane color supported?

From: Fred N. van Kempen <waltje_at_pdp11.nl>
Date: Sun Jun 1 09:59:01 2003

On Fri, 30 May 2003, Soeren Gust wrote:

> Last week I searched again and found version 2.1 of
> the VXT software in tar format, so I could finally
> try it.
That is the most recent (final) version of VXT, as far
as I know. It works on the VXT2000, 2000+, VT1300,
VAX 2000, and VAX 3100 series of machines, as long
as they have either monochrome graphics installed,
or a supported color option (4-plane, 8-plane GPX,
SPX, or SPX+ card).

The 2000 is tricky, in that its ROM implementation of
the MOP loader protocol is very picky about buffer
sizes during transfers, and since it has very space
to play with, transfers can fail, especially with
fast senders.

> It works, but only in monochrome.
Yup, it should.

> If I put my VS40X 4 plane color option board into the
> machine it seems to crash when it has finished loading.
Are you sure the board is OK? I don't have a 4-plane in
my machine, but know for sure it should work. Worst case,
get an 8plane GPX board (from an 3100) - they're availble,
dirt cheap and they work better :)

> does not react on the break switch at the back. Is the color board
> supported by the VXT software? Or is it a firmware issue? My board has
> version 1.4, are there newer versions available? Or even older version?
I believe mine is 1.7 or so, so this could be an issue.. if the ROM
does not initialize the card right, you might get into trouble. Also,
you need at least 8 or 12MB of RAM in the machine, as the entire MOP
image gets loaded (and then expanded) in memory. It could well be
that your system crashes on memory limits while trying to decompress
the image and/or activating the color drivers.

If you need a reliable (even under Linux :) MOP server, let me know.

--fred
Received on Sun Jun 01 2003 - 09:59:01 BST