On Sun, 2 Jan 2000, NetBSD Bob wrote:

> Over the holidays I did some playing on my stock of 3 5000/200 boxes, and
> managed to get one box up with enough parts to bring it up on a vt100
> serial monitor.  But, I was wondering, what specific cards and monitors
> work together on the 5000/200 boxes?  I have several of the older DEC
> 3 bnc monitors and a VRC-16 color and a VRC-17 mono monitor.  I have one
> card for a 5000 crate (PMAG(?)) with a w3 connector.  So, before I go on
> a wild goose chase making meself a millenium hernia lifting the old tubes
> into place, can anyone suggest a reasonable combination of monitor number
> or monitor specs that should work with the PMAG(?) card?  Also, are there
> any particular jumper settings or nvram settings to be twiddled anywhere?
> I could only find two header blocks on the 5000/200 motherboard, so I
> am not expecting jumpers to be twiddled.  Also, anyone have a command
> table of the rom commands for the 5000/200 class machines, or any other
> data that would be worthwhile to know?  The ? command is a little cryptic.
> How close is the rom to the 5000/25 class machines, rom commandwise?
> Finally, what is the largest size boot HD that will work in the 5000/200
> series machines on Ultrix 4.2 or NetBSD?
> 
> Thanks all, and happy new year!
> 
> Bob
> 

Bob,

	Off the top of my head, if you have a Color PMAG card (PMAG
BA,B-BA,C,D,E,F are supported for console in -current, however PMAG-C or
better won't run X to my knowledge, I get TLB miss and dump into ddb) If
you have one of those cards you can use any VRC monitor and I believe
VRT19-DA or VRT-299(?) 

	If you have a mono fb (PMAG-AA or PMAGB-BA which supports mono,
color and greyscale; although I've never tried it, nor do I remember
anyone saying they had.), the only monitor that comes to mind is the
VRT-19HA(?) or maybe the VRT199. I've heard some of the VAX folken have
used only the green BNC connector to get "greenscale" on a mono VS before,
not too sure if that works with PMAG cards as they are inherently smarter
as to what monitor is connected to them. The pmax web page links to
http://nbwww.isc.org/Ports/pmax/models.html#supp-options for a list of
supported/unsupported option cards.

	The redish-brown header block I'm not entirely sure of its
purpose. I know the DEC Linux folk (decstation.unix-ag.org) has a FAQ on
how to hook up a hard-reset switch to this connector for a 5k/25 and I
imagine the pins do the same thing on the whole 5xxx series. The black
jumper block is for reseting the NVRAM. If you put a jumper over this and
boot the system up, it blanks the NVRAM settings to the factory defaults
until you remove it. (Generally once you get to the >> you can take it
off) Note: It has been my experience that NVRAM changes will not
"stick" into NVRAM until you have successfully booted the machine into an
OS. So if you chance an environement and shut off the system, it may or
may not change the NVRAM values. (Yes this is with the jumper block
removed :) 

	Somewhere there was a command reference for the 5xxx series, but I
don't remember where it's at.

setenv console *  	Enables "T.C. probing for graphic console" In
otherwords: Checks to see if it can find a graphic console, if not,
defaults to serial console. You must setenv console s to force the system
into serial console. (do this before you install a frame buffer, else
you'll end up pulling it out again)

printenv 	shows system environment values

cnfg 7		on a 5k/200 the slots are different then the rest of the
5xxx line.

slot 7 = CPU module (mem, CPU, FPC, etc.)
slot 6 = LANCE ethernet (shows hardware MAC address)
slot 5 = onboard SCSI
slots 0-2 = TC slots 0-2

	On the rest of the 5xxx line, CPU, ethernet and SCSI are all
attached to slot 3. Tohru could explain to you why the 5000/200 is a bit
more "backwards" then the other pmaxen, basically it comes down to the
fact that the 200 doesn't have an ioasic to coordinate things. So instead
of boot 3/xxx/netbsd -a you would need:

boot 5/rzx/netbsd -a
boot 6/mop
boot 6/tftp

	To set a long autoboot variable you might go something like
this: (quotes are needed as shown)

setenv boot "-z 5 5/rz0/netbsd -a" That would make the system wait five
seconds before booting, and attempt to boot multuser from internal SCSI.

You might need to setenv haltaction b to make the system boot
automagically as well. Otherwise you can just type boot at >> instead of
typing out the boot command if you have the boot env set.

	As far as maximum size of an HD to boot from, I don't know what
the limits are. I imagine that it has more to do with the root partition
than the drive itself. So as long as you don't have like a 2+ GB root
partition, I think you'll be fine. I imagine the sysinst will complain
if the drive won't work for some reason or another. (If anyone knows it
would be a good addition to the FAQ)

	Did I write enough? Hope that helps. I've been contemplating
setting up a mini DEC info web page with pictures, settings and info on
VAXen and PMAXen when I get the time. 

	Chris