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MicroVAX Drive list

H

Huntman616

Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2024
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19
Hi everyone I recently acquired a MircoVAX 31000-40 with a empty hard drive and I was wondering what was the Saveron Prompt command to list drives because I was planning on installing netBSD since I can’t get my hands on vms for vax.

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.
 
Wildfire said:
sho dev d

btw -- welcome - and have fun !

You can always type help - or help show f.e.
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Hey thanks I have a huge collection of vintage PCs and 8-bits with a few 16-bits this is my first DEC so I'm still learning a lot about it so it helps to have support from veterans who know all about these machines.
 
YW. When you are new to DEC related hardware it maybe a steep learning curve, but there are tons of documentation available.
Bitsavers is your friend f.e.
 
Wildfire said:
YW. When you are new to DEC related hardware it maybe a steep learning curve, but there are tons of documentation available.
Bitsavers is your friend f.e.
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I think there is lots elsewhere. The documentation CDs on VAXHAVEN can be installed on modern windows. MANXDOCS has some items not on bitsavers.
 
g4ugm said:
You can find VAX VMS here :-

CD Image Archive - VaxHaven

www.vaxhaven.com www.vaxhaven.com

.. you can install in single user mode without a licence. You may find a licence on E-Bay or look on the comp.os.vms usenet group for other sources of licences.
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I did not know this I used to have a hobbies licensed in my archive of my email, but that got deleted somehow out of my archive. I guess my email automatically empty my archive after so long.
 
Huntman616 said:
I did not know this I used to have a hobbies licensed in my archive of my email, but that got deleted somehow out of my archive. I guess my email automatically empty my archive after so long.
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The hobbyist licenses from HP expired after a year and the last ones they sent out expired on 01-Jan-2022 so it wouldn't be any good anyway. I guess you could set the time back though.
 
Huntman616 said:
Hi everyone I recently acquired a MircoVAX 31000-40
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One important tip if you are new to the MicroVAX world:

If the Ni–Cd battery pack hasn't already been removed, remove it now. If it hasn't already started leaking and damaging traces on the main system PCB, it is only a matter of time before it does so and effectively destroys the PCB.
 
gslick said:
One important tip if you are new to the MicroVAX world:

If the Ni–Cd battery pack hasn't already been removed, remove it now. If it hasn't already started leaking and damaging traces on the main system PCB, it is only a matter of time before it does so and effectively destroys the PCB.
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Fun fact actually about my particular unit it was actually completely restored when I got it. Apparently the person who was selling them found a warehouse full of them and completely restored all of them I think one of the things they did was re-silkscreen the circuit board because when I originally got it, it only had just the computer and no drives or anything, so I had to buy a new hard drive optical drive as well as the terminal for it
 
Here's actually a picture of my unit. I thought I would share I had to get the Terminal separately and unfortunately the keyboard got destroyed during shipping so I'm in the process of getting a new one shipped.GEAtGd1WoAAyXkw.jpeg
 
The device that you have sitting on top of the MicroVAX is the terminal. It's a DEC VT420, and the keyboard would attach directly it, and then the VT420 would attach to the MicroVAX's serial interface and be the console.

- Alex
 
Well, my keyboard came today and I was able to see the drive list. Only problem is I don’t think I saw my optical drive and I was asking will that only show up if there’s a disk in the drive of course I could’ve hooked it up all wrong because when I got, this unit it didn’t come with any drives so I had to buy those separately but it did see the hard drive so I don’t know unless I’m confused and that is the optical drive that’s being listed and since the hard drive in there is a new unformatted hard drive like I said I’m new to VAX
 

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Your CD (Optical) drive is the RRD43 device on the second line named DKA300. Apparently it's SCSI id 3 on the bus. The SCSI controller looks to be Id 6 (..HostID..) so you have ids 0-5 and 7 available for SCSI devices. There is no hard drive listed. ESA0 is the network device.

Any device on the SCSI bus that is working will show whether or not it is initialized (disks) or has media (CD). So if you have hard drives on the SCSI bus they are not showing. If they are addressed at id 3 or 6 then that could be a reason why. Though conflicts like that usually result in a SCSI bus that doesn't show anything and gets an error in the startup tests.

Verify SCSI addresses and power connections. If the M40 is like my M95 then the SCSI bus (cable) is already terminated so any devices you put on it should have termination disabled.

Doing a SHOW CONFIG could also be helpful to show the overall configuration.
 
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reinhardtjh said:
Your CD (Optical) drive is the RRD43 device on the second line named DKA300. Apparently it's SCSI id 3 on the bus. The SCSI controller looks to be Id 6 (..HostID..) so you have ids 0-5 and 7 available for SCSI devices. There is no hard drive listed. ESA0 is the network device.

Any device on the SCSI bus that is working will show whether or not it is initialized (disks) or has media (CD). So if you have hard drives on the SCSI bus they are not showing. If they are addressed at id 3 or 6 then that could be a reason why. Though conflicts like that usually result in a SCSI bus that doesn't show anything and gets an error in the startup tests.

Verify SCSI addresses and power connections. If the M40 is like my M95 then the SCSI bus (cable) is already terminated so any devices you put on it should have termination disabled.

Doing a SHOW CONFIG could also be helpful to show the overall configuration.
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I did order a newer DEC hard drive it uses the 60 something pin connector compared to the 50 so I had to get an adapter. I don’t know if that could cause problems or if I just have it plugged into the wrong cable. But I’d have to open up the case when I get home, I remember the SCSI cables being labeled 1 2 3 etc.. I don’t know if those could be referring to the SCSI ids
 
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Huntman616 said:
I did order a newer DEC hard drive it uses the 60 something pin connector compared to the 50 so I had to get an adapter. I don’t know if that could cause problems or if I just have it plugged into the wrong cable. But I’d have to open up the case when I get home, I remember the SCSI cables being labeled 1 2 3 etc.. I don’t know if those could be referring to the SCSI ids
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The labels on the cable is just for knowing which physical position the drive occupies in the system. It's not for SCSI addressing purposes. Most likely there are small jumper blocks on the drive itself. You will probably have to get the drive brand and model number and do a Google search for the technical specs to find out about jumper settings. Some have them on the label but too often they are not or are unreadable. You need to pay attention to things like if it's single-ended (SE) or low-voltage differential ( most newer drives with 68-pins are but not all) (LVD) and if there are jumper settings to configure the drive one way or another. You would want SE for the VAX SCSI controllers. There might be other jumper terminals for termination, unit enable and other options.

I assume the 68-50 pin adapter looks something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/315071353208
 
reinhardtjh said:
The labels on the cable is just for knowing which physical position the drive occupies in the system. It's not for SCSI addressing purposes. Most likely there are small jumper blocks on the drive itself. You will probably have to get the drive brand and model number and do a Google search for the technical specs to find out about jumper settings. Some have them on the label but too often they are not or are unreadable. You need to pay attention to things like if it's single-ended (SE) or low-voltage differential ( most newer drives with 68-pins are but not all) (LVD) and if there are jumper settings to configure the drive one way or another. You would want SE for the VAX SCSI controllers. There might be other jumper terminals for termination, unit enable and other options.

I assume the 68-50 pin adapter looks something like this https://www.ebay.com/itm/315071353208
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OK I’ll have to get the drive information when I get home out of town for the night went to a basketball game and yeah that’s what the adapter looks like but I like to thank everyone here for the support
 
Huntman616 said:
OK I’ll have to get the drive information when I get home out of town for the night went to a basketball game and yeah that’s what the adapter looks like but I like to thank everyone here for the support
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Small update. Apparently eBay does save records of your past purchases, so I was able to pull up the information of the hard drive I have, and put in the machine. and through that I was able to find this graphic based off of what I can remember, it set to default configuration which is ID zero, but I’d have to double check and look at the pins. I’ll also look at the system configuration and send a picture of that when I get home tomorrow around noon.
 

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Based on the second image if J5 is unpopulated, then you should be set for SCSI id 0 which should not conflict with anything. For J4 I think you only need/want "Enable Motor Start". The two "Reserved" jumpers might need to be in as well. If they currently aren't then try it like that. If it doesn't show up put them in. You should not need "Enable Drive Terminator" if your SCSI in the M40 is like in the M95. The SCSI cable is terminated at both ends. Generally the end of the bus is a Centronics type CN50 connector on the back of the chassis and it has a terminator in it. If it does not and you don't have one then you should get one if you can. The CD drive probably attaches to the cable after the hard drive so enabling the termination on the hard drive will be too soon. It should go on either the last device or the last connector. J01 should also not have any jumpers.
 
Huntman616 said:
Small update. Apparently eBay does save records of your past purchases, so I was able to pull up the information of the hard drive I have, and put in the machine.
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reinhardtjh said:
Based on the second image if J5 is unpopulated, then you should be set for SCSI id 0 which should not conflict with anything. For J4 I think you only need/want "Enable Motor Start". The two "Reserved" jumpers might need to be in as well. If they currently aren't then try it like that. If it doesn't show up put them in. You should not need "Enable Drive Terminator" if your SCSI in the M40 is like in the M95. The SCSI cable is terminated at both ends. Generally the end of the bus is a Centronics type CN50 connector on the back of the chassis and it has a terminator in it. If it does not and you don't have one then you should get one if you can. The CD drive probably attaches to the cable after the hard drive so enabling the termination on the hard drive will be too soon. It should go on either the last device or the last connector. J01 should also not have any jumpers.
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Yeah, I just double checked the drive J4 was set to drive terminator so I just changed it to motor start let’s see if it works
 
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