VAXBI SCSI?

From: Ethan Dicks <dickset_at_amanda.spole.gov>
Date: Tue Oct 12 16:46:42 2004

On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 02:12:41PM -0700, Gene Buckle wrote:
> I've since been told it has DSSI and some kind of SCSI adapter, so it
> looks like I'll be able to use SCSI drives with it.

Handy. I have zero experience with DSSI. I did own an R400X(?)
DSSI cab, but I gave it to a fellow list member in town (2 miles
from my house) because I had no controllers that could talk to
it (it was mostly full of multi-gig 5.25" drives - RF74s?)

I've heard of DSSI<->SCSI adapters. They sound like a good
solution for systems that are DSSI-only.

> It only has 384MB of RAM so if I get it I'll want to bump that up if
> I can get it cheap.

*cough* OK... if you say so... I'm happy to have 16MB in my 8200, and
I'd be happier if it weren't on 5 cards! (2MB and 4MB) Unless you
plan to run some monster stuff or a *lot* of simultaneous users, a
VAX (as opposed to an Alpha) VMS system should be happy with a lot
less than what you already have.

We used to run 20-30 simultaneous users (out of 60-70 at the company)
on an 11/750 w/8MB (VMS 5.5-2), and it didn't swap. Pre-6.x versions
of VMS, especially on VAXen, work fine with "small" amounts of memory.

> Will VMS 5.2 work on it? That's the newest version I have (on TK50
> tapes I think).

Not sure what the oldest version of VMS you can use is, but if I had
to guess, I'd say there's a chance that you need a slightly newer
version. Not guaranteed, but it's possible. We never had hardware
that new, so this is a fuzzy area for me. My experience is solidly
in the 11/750 and 11/730 era, with some 8200 and 8530 time. I then
didn't do much until Alphas reigned. I kinda missed the 6xxx era.

Similarly, I have lots of 4.0 -> 5.5-2 experience, some 6.x, and a bit
of 7.2 experience, due to where I've worked and what's running in my
basement.
 
> The 8250 I had I bought from Mannesman-Tally here in Kent. $500 and I had
> to de-install it myself. It was a fun machine. I had no business putting
> it in the upstairs of my house though. Especially with four RA81s.

Ooph! My 8200/8300 is in the basement, along with one RA81, and a TU80
(which I'd be using if I could get my DWBUA working).

 
> This machine does have a DEBNA(?) ethernet card in it, so if I get it, at
> least I can put it on the net for others to play with. :)

You might want to consider a newer version of VMS, then. I don't have any
experience with TCP/IP on pre-OpenVMS 7.x, but I know VMS 5.x didn't come
with anything except DECnet. There were several options back in the day for
VMS 5.x machines, but at work then, we never went with any of them (we made
SNA and Bisync hardware/software ourselves, so we just used our own products
in a point-to-point HASP network to move stuff around on the machines that
didn't happen to have DDCMP serial cards and DECnet).

-ethan


-- 
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S      Current South Pole Weather at 12-Oct-2004 21:30 Z
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Received on Tue Oct 12 2004 - 16:46:42 BST

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