Micro Vax two project

Have ten thousand other ongoing projects and also work but have managed to get a couple hours in on the Micro Vax project. The system has been completely disassembled, visually inspected and cleaned up. It contained a surprising amount of Michigan dirt and also replaced the missing AC controller in the base of the rack. I removed for now the Emulex hard drive controller card and moved all the other Qbus cards up so the grant bus would be ok and have done the power up stuff and saw the system do its self-test and they all complete with the con coming up with the results. Did find that the TK-50 drive has some issue but have a spare to replace it with so now am at the point where I have to address the operating system. If anyone out there has a copy of VMS, or any ideas of what version of VMS that I should be looking for please let me know. Think I can come up with Open VMS version 7.0 or 6.1 but don’t know what versions will run best on an old KA-630 processor. also still have to sort out the hard drive thing but do have several Seagate 251 and 225 drives around then it just the question of disk size. Thinking that after I swap out the defective TK-50 that maybe I can use that until I resolve the disk issue. If I can con anyone out of a copy of VMS on TK-50 tapes will gladly trade two new cart rages for one with VMS on it otherwise thinking I would have to load operating system via the tape transport.

Hi, I have the same setup as you Mvax II CPU and memory and a SCSI card (mine is Emulex UC07). It was suggested to me to use a SCSI CD-ROM connected to the UC08 as well as a SCSI DISK or SCSI2SD. Then burn a CD on your PC with the Open VMS image and boot from it in the CD drive on you MVax II. I have all the bits to do this but all my projects are on the back burner at the moment due to other commitments.

Think I have a SCSI Qbus card around here somewhere. That may be an alternative to the whole RQDX3 mess, have tons of SCSI drives of different sizes with a couple old three or four hundred Meg drives that are the same size as the old Seagate’s so they will fit well. Just need to know the setup for the address for the SCSI card and find where I have it hidden. Played around with the TK-50 and am starting to see why people hate them. Had a bunch of TK-50 tapes and was playing around with loading them and doing a boot command and the system try to boot from them although don’t have any idea what’s on them but discovered that if they don’t have system files the drive will keep motoring down the tape and has issues with stuffing the tape back in the box when you try to eject resulting in a tape that’s still threaded popping out. Have been looking at VMS on that sale place on open reel and may try buying that along with adapting the SCSI in place of the RD whatever’s. Got a ton of old 4 GB SCSI drives and wonder what they would do?

If that is the system that was on e-bay for a long time, in Ann Arbor,
then I can tell you that there are no SCSI controllers in the chassis.

The SU03 board that you listed is an SC03-BXC controller card for SMD drives,
such as the CDC 9762, Fujitsu Eagle, etc. . . interesting, but fun nonetheless.
As I recall, they emulate RP/RM type drives. RP03, RM02, RM80, etc.

The CU02 cards are 16-port communication multiplexors -- CS02's -- they emulate 2 x DHV11's, if I recall.
Hopefully, they are rev "J" (or was it rev "L"?) or higher -- some of the DEC multi-user operating systems need
the higher rev level to operate. Others don't care.

Still not a bad little system.

Got lots of parts around here, couple years back before I got my RL drives up and running was trying to put together a SCSI system for my 11/23 and bought a SCSI card for that. Don’t remember the number off the top of my head but it was a 22bit Qbus card. There would be many advantages to replacing the RQDX3 with SCSI being that I have access to lots of drives that are useless in today’s systems but may have a use in these old systems. Most of the servers and high end workstations from twenty years ago were built with SCSI drives and spent much time back then swapping out drives to stuff larger drives in and ended up with lots of old drives that I put on the shelf that today have no value. Biggest problem may be if the old SCSI controllers will work with the 1, 4 and 9 Gb drives being they were much bigger than the stuff that card worked with. Back then was able to store drives and no one cared but today when drives are removed from a system or when we get rid of a workstation have to go thru a huge deal with removing the drives, documenting them and having them destroyed. At some point in the future IDE and SATA drives will be scares because we are destroying all the old ones when taking systems off line.

Some of the DEC operating systems don't mind what size drive you use -- RSX, for example.
RSTS/E will only want 2GB or less.

You can use a SCSI Mode Page editor, and use it to down-size the drive to whatever you'd like.

Or, some of the controllers will be happy to partition a single physical drive into several smaller logical drives.

TiggerLAS said:

Some of the DEC operating systems don't mind what size drive you use -- RSX, for example.
RSTS/E will only want 2GB or less.

You can use a SCSI Mode Page editor, and use it to down-size the drive to whatever you'd like.

Click to expand...

I use sg_format from the Win32 sg3_utils executables from http://sg.danny.cz/sg/sg3_utils.html to soft resize drives larger than 1GB down to exactly 1GB for older SCSI systems that do not support drives larger than 1GB, or down to smaller sizes when 1GB is still too large.

I have two sets of MicroVAX II boards but only one console panel. I've tested both CPU's and the four memory boards. I've put a set up on e-bay for sale and I'll keep the other set.

The stupidest things are defeating me! Got an old RD54 and stuffed it into the system configured as DUA0, the disk spins up and everything but think it’s been wiped and hope that it’s still DEC formatted. So I can’t boot from DUA0 using the standard “Boot” command, after line two the system just fails to boot and will keep retrying until I halt it. I have a set of open reel tapes for installing VMS 5.4 along with an old reel copy of RT-11 on open reel and I can mount the tape on the transport and the transport will load the tapes and stand by in the on line mode but the new problem is I can’t figure out where the transport is to call it on the boot command. It’s not DIA, DIB or DIC0 or1, nor is it DUA, DUB or DUC0 or 1. The in ROM version of ODT that the MicroVAX two uses is just different enough that I have not been able to stomp around in the address structure like the PDP-11 systems I am use to so at the point of being ready to install an operating system if I can just figure out how to call my tape drive. Also looking thru the VMS manuals starting to wonder if VMS may be a good way of life? Looks like it not backwards compatible with any of the old eleven family of stuff in terms of the RL, RX or RK drives. More and more thinking the future may be an 11/73 or 83 with RT-11 for this system.

Qbus said:

I have a set of open reel tapes for installing VMS 5.4 along with an old reel copy of RT-11 on open reel and I can mount the tape on the transport and the transport will load the tapes and stand by in the on line mode but the new problem is I can’t figure out where the transport is to call it on the boot command.

Click to expand...

If your controller does TMSCP then the tape drive is probably MU0 (VMS name MUA0). Another popular controller type on small systems would be MS0 (for TS11 or TSV05).

Hi Qbus,

I'd recommend looking for a Seagate ST-225 (=> RD31) or ST-251 (=> RD32) which can be formatted to suit the RQDX3 controller. In fact the real RD31s/RD32s are ST-225s/ST-251s formatted and sold by DEC (much more expensive of course!).
I was lucky to get some of both on ebay, including three NEW ST-225s! The RD31 is very tight for VMS (V4.x should work), but the RD32 is o.k..

Little disadvantage: You either need a VAX/VAXstation 2000 or a PDP-11 with an RQDX3 controller able to run XXDP to do the formatting. Or find someone that can do it for you.

If you don't mind sending your disk(s) to Germany I could do that for you ;-))

I own (and run) two MVax II and one MV I beside several newer Microvaxen and VAXstations, a VAX-11/725, a VAX-11/750, a PDP-11/23 and a PDP-11/83.

Best choice would of course be a SCSI controller, but those are rare and expensive :-((

Good luck

Ulli

The Vaxorcist


P.S.
By the way: I can provide my Old-VMS collection DVD with VMS versions from V1 to V4.7

Sacrilege! I may be thinking of VAXaside. I have not been getting much love from the MicroVAX II system I have beyond just running what’s resident in the boot ROM and chewing up TK-50 tapes, bought a old version of VMS(5.4) but somehow befuddled by trying to get it to boot from the CDC drive that I have on the system so to see if the drive was working took the Petec controller out of the VAX and stuffed it up my old 11/23 and after learning that the Petec looks just like a TS-11 can call up the drive, read files and all sorts of fun stuff with the half inch drive and open reels. My old version of RT-11 sees the drive as MS0: Now the problem is that I am starting to think the CDC drive and nice roll around rack with the VAX stuffed in it may be a lot more fun if I remove the VAX hardware and install the 11/23, expansion chassis and RL drive that’s with that system. The Micro VAX can go out to the long term storage aria with the idea that maybe someday I may be smart enough to get it to boot, or figure how to deal with the mysteries of field formatting the drive or all the other issues that somehow appear in the VAX world. Also have to admit that I am real bummed by VMS/VAX not supporting RL, RK or RX family products. The only issue is that the roll around VAX rack not big enough to house the tape drive, CPU and RL drive along with my RX-02, right now VAXaside is starting to look good to me.

Qbus said:

Also have to admit that I am real bummed by VMS/VAX not supporting RL, RK or RX family products.

Click to expand...

What? My VAX-11/730 has an RL02 drive, and it's supported under VMS. But then, it's connected to an integrated controller board that also controls the R80 drive, so maybe that's a special case?

NF6X said:

What? My VAX-11/730 has an RL02 drive, and it's supported under VMS. But then, it's connected to an integrated controller board that also controls the R80 drive, so maybe that's a special case?

Click to expand...

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/v73_spd.pdf
Software Product Description
PRODUCT NAME: Compaq OpenVMS Operating System for Alpha and VAX, Version 7.3 SPD 25.01.66

RK711 UNIBUS disk controller for RK07 disk drives.
RL211 UNIBUS disk controller for the RL02 disk drive.
RX211 UNIBUS diskette controller for two RX02 drives. One RX211 diskette controller is supported per system.

No mention of supported Q-bus controllers for the above.

Doh! Right, I forgot that the MicroVAX has a QBUS instead of a UNIBUS.

gslick said:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/v73_spd.pdf
Software Product Description
PRODUCT NAME: Compaq OpenVMS Operating System for Alpha and VAX, Version 7.3 SPD 25.01.66

RK711 UNIBUS disk controller for RK07 disk drives.
RL211 UNIBUS disk controller for the RL02 disk drive.
RX211 UNIBUS diskette controller for two RX02 drives. One RX211 diskette controller is supported per system.

No mention of supported Q-bus controllers for the above.

Click to expand...

I tried my microvax II SimH with VMS 6.1 and it at least seems to detect the RL disk. Show devices show DLA0 .. DLA3. Haven't tried VMS 7.3 yes.

Qbus said:

...Micro VAX ... figure how to deal with the mysteries of field formatting the drive

Click to expand...

How about setting up the MicroVAX chassis with the 11/23 CPU and memory etc. so you can format the RD54 using XXDP? I was thinking if you move the 11/23 to the MicroVAX chassis the cabling between the RQDX3 and the RD54 would work (rather than trying to move that whole mess to another box).

MattisLind said:

I tried my microvax II SimH with VMS 6.1 and it at least seems to detect the RL disk. Show devices show DLA0 .. DLA3. Haven't tried VMS 7.3 yes.

Click to expand...

Maybe one of those things that works without being supported? I don't think I have ever tried Q-bus RL or RX controllers with VMS 7.3

Knowing little and starting to lean towards wanting to learn less about VMS I base my comments on what was written in the software installation guide for VMS five dot whatever. Thought I saw a paragraph about all the sort of huge old drives I know and love not being supported.
Just get the feeling that VAX is designed around a more powerful user group and a multiuser environment and not like the comfort of a simple operating environment like RT-11
Thought about if I can find a newer Qbus face plate and card of using the same chassis but already have the 11/23 and it’s not in a proper rack and would look good in the newer rack and unlike most people I take great pleasure in building up rack systems with the slide rails and everything else.

The end results, the MicroVAX II has been removed and in its place I have installed a 11/23 system with a expansion chassis for the additional memory with the primary chassis holding the 8186, RL drive controller, communications card and the Emulex interface for the CDC open reel transport. The bottom chassis has the memory card and the Bootstrap terminator card and below that is a RL-01 drive that currently has the RT-11 operating system. The CDC works as MS0: and now has me looking for open reel tapes looking forward to playing around more with that. Have to depart over the holiday and will be back next week but am looking forward to doing a You Tube video on the project. The VAXII has been moved out to the long term storage for a later possible use or as trading material.
Upgrades for the future will include upgrading the RL-01 for a 02 and upgrading the operating system to a newer version of RT-11