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VAX Haul...

Roland, I will take a few pictures of what I hauled away once I have got it into a presentable state...

I didn't have my camera when I piled it all up for collection. The stack of equipment was collected by various people.

I did make a note of the SHOW ERROR output - but that bit of paper seems to have got lost somewhere.

I will do it again and make a note tomorrow - when I start erasing more disks...

Dave
 
daver2 said:
I have been reading online about the LCSPX error - and it appears fairly common. A couple of posts even suggest that the card detects the presence of the monitor (possibly via the termination resistors in the monitor) and this may be the source of the error? Theory until put to the test...

Dave
Click to expand...

I'll order the BNC male to VGA cable this week and check this out as well.:thumbsup:
 
Another SCSI disk erased...

Started cleaning up the cases...

Removed the covers from the VT420s (all green tubes by the codes) and blew out the dust and cr*p. I will try these tomorrow night (along with the LK401 keyboards) to see how many work and how many don’t. I do have a spare VT420 case fitted with a white tube - but all of the electronics are missing.

Got the DEC Server 90L+ powered up OK, but not tested it yet.

Starting to get all the bits together for installation of the CDROM drive into the /96. I think I’ll go this way rather than use the external storage solution.

Dave
 
Dave (g4ugm),

I am missing the 3W3 to BNC cable from the VAX station itself.

I do have the monitor (if it works) so I just need the bog standard cable.

I also understand, with a bit of investigative work this afternoon, that the IBM RS6000 may have used the same cable.

Dave
 
daver2 said:
Dave (g4ugm),

I am missing the 3W3 to BNC cable from the VAX station itself.

I do have the monitor (if it works) so I just need the bog standard cable.

I also understand, with a bit of investigative work this afternoon, that the IBM RS6000 may have used the same cable.

Dave
Click to expand...

I am sure I have a spare. I got two gifted when I was setting up my VLC. All my other VAXstaions have the plain D-Type (is it 17 or 19 pin?) Are you coming north soon?
 
If you can find one, my VAX VLC is using a IBM 58F2903 which is a 3w3 to BNC, probably the exact cable for that RS6000.
 
Any 3w3-to-BNC cable should do fine, since you can just swap the BNC connectors around to the right jacks. That's what I ended up doing with my VAXStation.
 
I connected a keyboard to my Vaxstation 4000 90 but I still get the graphics error on my serial terminal ?? 001 2 LCSPX 0512 on power up. I have the BNC to VGA adapter cable ordered so I'll try it with a VGA screen attached when the cable arrives.

On a side note I erased a 2.1GB RZ28 and that took 2 hours and 20 mins. I have three more of these to erase and a couple of 18GB RZ1EA, they'll be interesting as I'm not sure if my Storageworks BA353-AA or even the Vaxstation support them. If not I can connect them to an Alphastation and try. The BA353-AA came with an Alphastation.
 
PG31 said:
I connected a keyboard to my Vaxstation 4000 90 but I still get the graphics error on my serial terminal ?? 001 2 LCSPX 0512 on power up. I have the BNC to VGA adapter cable ordered so I'll try it with a VGA screen attached when the cable arrives.

On a side note I erased a 2.1GB RZ28 and that took 2 hours and 20 mins. I have three more of these to erase and a couple of 18GB RZ1EA, they'll be interesting as I'm not sure if my Storageworks BA353-AA or even the Vaxstation support them. If not I can connect them to an Alphastation and try. The BA353-AA came with an Alphastation.
Click to expand...

SHOW ERROR after the diagnostics complete could help pinpoint what the error is. Although, in the end, I suspect it won't make much difference. If you're lucky, it still works well enough, else I doubt there is anything that can be done today.

As for the RZ1EA, they should be supported just fine. It's just SCSI after all. The only "limitations" are on some 3100 models, where they use a short form for SCSI block addressing in the boot monitor, meaning the boot monitor cannot access anything beyond about 1G. But apart from the boot monitor, those machines also support any SCSI disk just fine, but you don't even have a 3100 here, so that's not an issue for you.
 
As you say.
I’ve a 9GB disk as the 2nd drive in my 3100/80 and whilst the monitor >>>sho dev comes up with an arbitrary capacity for it, once VMS has booted it recognises and accesses the 9GB just fine.
 
2 more SCSI disks erased tonight... 2 more tomorrow night perhaps :)?

Takes 1 hr 15 minutes for a 1 GB drive on a 100 MHz VAX station 4000 model 96.

The specifications I have seen do identify a maximum disk capacity that is supported. Whether this is real or not is another question though.

Darn it, I left the paper that had the SHOW ERROR output scribbled on it again...

Dave
 
daver2 said:
Takes 1 hr 15 minutes for a 1 GB drive on a 100 MHz VAX station 4000 model 96.
Click to expand...

That's pretty amazing. I don't ever remember something like that taking that long. Is it just formatting or writing data or what?

Even then, 230K Bps seems slow, even for a legacy SCSI interface.
 
I assume (!) it is completely (over)writing all of the data on the disk...

It may also be reading and verifying it as well of course.

I can see from the disk activity LED that it is clearly flashing.

Running a console verify only takes about 5 minutes - and the disk activity LED is on all the time.

Dave
 
I picked up my piece of paper today that has the results of the console SHOW ERROR output:

Code: 
?  001 1 NVR   0025
?? 001 2 LCSPX 0200
015 0206 60 68 68 0 0 0

I have omitted all of the leading zeros from the hex values of the extended error report...

Dave
 
daver2 said:
I picked up my piece of paper today that has the results of the console SHOW ERROR output:

Code: 
?  001 1 NVR   0025
?? 001 2 LCSPX 0200
015 0206 60 68 68 0 0 0

I have omitted all of the leading zeros from the hex values of the extended error report...

Dave
Click to expand...

Aha. Thanks. So that's reporting that the Brooktree DAC is the problem, and more specifically the Brooktree Analog Compare. That's as much information I have. I have the same on my machine. It might actually be a case of missing monitor that could cause it. I guess the interesting thing is to test if it displays anything.
I seem to remember that I tested mine, and it worked fine, but it's been a while, so I wouldn't swear on it.
 
daver2 said:
I assume (!) it is completely (over)writing all of the data on the disk...

It may also be reading and verifying it as well of course.

I can see from the disk activity LED that it is clearly flashing.

Running a console verify only takes about 5 minutes - and the disk activity LED is on all the time.

Dave
Click to expand...

I suspect it also reads back and verify that all blocks are good. And I think formatting takes more time than just simple reads or writes.
 
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