Qbus hard disk controller

From: Pete Turnbull <pete_at_dunnington.u-net.com>
Date: Wed Jun 9 18:02:43 2004

On Jun 8, 19:18, Jerome H. Fine wrote:
> >Jay West wrote:

Jay, could you look at the ROMs on your RXDXen and see what the 23-xxx
numbers are?

> > I believe I have a few spare RQDX2's, but those dont do RD53 drives
just
> > RD52 I think?
>
> Jerome Fine replies:
>
> Controller Model Max RD5n Drive
> ------------------ ------------------
> RQDX1 (M8639) RD51
> RQDX1 (M8639-YA) RD52
> RQDX3 (M8639-YB) RD53
> RQDX3 (M7555) RD54 - RD3n drives also allowed
>
> NOTES:
> (1) RQDX1 must be the last board in the Qbus (i.e. ONLY one allowed)
> (2) All RQDXn also allow the RX50
> (3) RQDX3 also allows the RX33 and RT-11 can FORMAT an RX33 media

The difference between RQDX1 (M8639) and RQDX1 (M8639-YA) is just the
ROMs, which were field-upgraded, so check the ROM numbers not the
handle. Only the third version is -YA, which supports RD52. The first
version has problems with RX50s.

    V.7.0 23-238E4 and 23-239E4
    V.8.0 23-264E4 and 23-265E4
    V.9.0 23-042E5 and 23-043E5

M8639-YB is not RQDX3, it's RQDX2. There were three versions of the
ROMs for this, and only the last two supported RD53. The difference
between M8639[-YA] and M8639-YB is a diode and some hackery in the top
left corner; this too could be done in the field so don't rely on the
handle number. The purpose was to eliminate the "must be last card in
backplane" problem.

    V.9.4 23-172E5 and 23-173E5
    V.10D 23-178E5 and 23-179E5
    V.10E 23-188E5 and 23-189E5

The RQDX3 also had several versions of its "microcode", and the first
doesn't directly support RD3x (it has other problems too). The first
three or four have problems with anything bigger than an RD53.

   ??? 23-166E5 and 23-167E5
   V.1.10 23-216E5 and 23-217E5
   V.2.? 23-243E5 and 23-244E5
   V.3.? 23-285E5 and 23-286E5
   V.4 23-339E5 and 23-340E5 (RQDX3-F002 / EQ-01532-02)

I'm not sure if the 23-166E5 and 23-167E5 really exist; I have every
version of the RQDX3 ROMs except those, and the numbers may be a
typographic error (as implied in one of the FCOs). Or else they were
so bad they were replaced before or very quickly after the RQDX3
release.

I also have the RQDX1/2 ROMs versions 7, 8, 9.0, 9.4, 10E, but not 10D.

-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York
Received on Wed Jun 09 2004 - 18:02:43 BST

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