Recent content by Terri Kennedy

DEC tended to radically under-estimate the amount of real memory as this was their first real virtual memory designed into an architecture (the 36-bit systems could get the BBN pager and DEC felt compelled to offer one, but that wasn't in the design from the start. They sold 780s with 256KB. :eek:

If the other disk is empty, do a backup/physical. It will actually be faster since you won't be doing repeated directory reads. What does analyze/error show (this is long before DEC broke ERRDIS)? "New" backup was a disaster at the start. There was a whole big flap where DEC threatened to sue...

Does the Tx light ever light up?

Do you have a link light on the AUI transceiver? On the connected device? I like the Cisco BL50R (which is OEM'd from somewhere else, but I forget where) because they have LEDs and switches for everything. But the prices on those have gone through the roof. IIRC, the firmware on those...

Do you have a cabinet kit installed with an AUI terminator ("Ethercork") or a transceiver with SQE enabled and properly terminated (BNC T with a pair of terminators if thinwire, or RJ45 into a 10Mbit/sec hub/switch)? These cards were known to throw errors if there was no good external link...

Let me know if you want the rest of the documentation in .txt form (cc.txt is in my reply above). None of the converters I found (after converting from RUNOFF to TeX) could do a decent job. The PDF I posted was the best I could get, but the online TeX to PDF converter didn't understand the...

Never trust any of the shippers to do an acceptable job of packing. Either have the seller do it (if they're capable / willing) or ask for assistance from someone in groups like this. For example, if I had done it each PCB would be in its own antistatic bag, with an appropriately-sized...

You could always use deionized water for the rinse. I have a pretty hefty setup in my garage for washing my car - all but the last rinse use regular water and then I used deionized water for the final rinse so it drys on its own without spots. Anybody in the NYC area can DM me and make an...

Edited: While waiting for a multi-hour disk rebuild... A rather grueling process to end up as a PDF loses a lot of line formatting. I'm trying to find a better converter, so consider this PDF provisional. I'm also attaching the file in vanilla .txt formatting:

Let me re-phrase myself - I know someone who communicates with that person occasionally (and gets responses). I believe that neither wants to be identified here or elsewhere.

I think various SIG tapes had "Bonner Labs RUNOFF" which was an improved version of the DEC one. But VMS still has runoff available, so you could just spin up a simulator session. Or email me the .rno files and I'll process them.

VSI has the rights to build / modify / update / etc. VMS on VAX, Alpha, Itanium and x86-64. They have stated they will never do a VAX build, but according to their 'latest' (2022?) support roadmap, they will gladly sell you 'prior version support without sustaining engineering' (AKA "Give us...

[Pardon the thread necrophilia.] Go to https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/search/search-information and enter "digital equipment" (without the quotes). Note the large number of Dead / Dead - abandoned / Dead - cancelled in the results. In perusing several pages, I was unable to find a single relevant...

Could be DECUS C, could be Whitesmith's C hosted elsewhere and then burned into the EPROMs, etc.

Is this an official VAX distribution ISO from the NetBSD site (or one of its mirrors)? The instructions at https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-10.1/vax/INSTALL.html don't actually mention how to boot from a CD (for example, if there are R5 parameters needed on the boot command). The...