- VCF South West - June 14 - 16, Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas at Dallas
- VCF West - Aug 2 - 3, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
- VCF Midwest - Sept 7 - 8 2024, Schaumburg, IL
- VCF SoCal - Mid February 2025, Location TBD, Southern CA
- VCF East - April 2025, Infoage Museum, Wall NJ
-
Please review our updated Terms and Rules here
DEC MicroVax 2000
- Thread starter maxfli
- Start date
Michael Robinson
Member
Indeed. I don't know about the MicroVAX 2000 specifically but NetBSD doesn't support all the early DSSI SCSI chipsets. I've got a VAXStation 3520, the SCSI for which NetBSD does not support, even though the CPU is supported just fine.
OpenBSD does support the DSSI SCSI, so that is what I'm running. Aside from the fact that I'm stuck at OpenBSD 5.8 since development for VAX is stopped, it is pretty stable.
My machine has typical uptimes measured in months. That is good because that is how long it takes to build modern libraries from source on this hardware!
I recently got the latest OpenSSL 3.0.8 to build successfully from source. That adventure took about 3 months of sustained compiling, and then about two weeks for
make install to do its thing. I'm working on getting cURL 7.88.1 to build, but it's tricky because OpenBSD 5.8 doesn't support shared libraries. So linking is ... complicated ... But to answer your question:
The SCSI2SD devices (and related) are a real help. You can have one emulate both an ISO image and the target drive simultaneously, which makes installation relatively painless.
Wildfire
Experienced Member
It depends on what hardware you have.
F.e. if you got also an TK50 drive you can install VAX/VMS from some install media.
Another variant is MOP boot via network: b esa0
But before you can do that you need an MOP server.
This can f.e. be another VAX or Alpha running VMS, you need ISOs from the install CD or just a mounted one in the CDrom drive.
There are recipies for a Linux MOP server with older kernel versions, this should be the easiest way if you do not have so much experience with VMS.
You find information about that with the usual search engines: Linux MOP server
Also, BSDs should be installable via MOP.
You can also go the SCSI way as written with the Moeller patches...
Wildfire
Experienced Member
I' am just curious, how much memory installed ?
And do you know that people did some testing with a different config ?
They throw out the graphics cards, and added more CPU boards to the system as a replacement.
Officially this was never supported but VAX/VMS did still run happily with about 8-10 CPUs !
If i remember it correctly there has been one third party memory board with 64MB in the system.
So this may speed up your compiling projects a little bit
m_thompson
Veteran Member
I have a DEC Infoserver, a special version of a VAX built as an installation server. You just MOP boot a VAX from the Infoserver and a VMS installation is done from disk files, a CDROM, or a TK50 tape.
Could you run the Infoserver software on a Simh VAX and use it to MOP boot your VAX?
Could you run the Infoserver software on a Simh VAX and use it to MOP boot your VAX?
nadaveiron
Member
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2019
- Messages
- 38
Wildfire
Experienced Member
You are right, i totally forgot about the InfoServer; also have at least the 150 and 1000 here...
One is also able to do this direct with the OpenVMS operating system:
As an alternative to InfoServer hardware, systems running OpenVMS I64
V8.2-1 and later, and OpenVMS Alpha V8.3 and later, include host-based
InfoServer server support, and directly integrated into OpenVMS itself.
One is also able to do this direct with the OpenVMS operating system:
As an alternative to InfoServer hardware, systems running OpenVMS I64
V8.2-1 and later, and OpenVMS Alpha V8.3 and later, include host-based
InfoServer server support, and directly integrated into OpenVMS itself.
This particular system has a RX33 floppy drive and a RD32 hard drive.