> My questions are the following:
> - How can I find out (Using only the console) how the machine is 
>   configured (disk, memory and so on)

If you have a copy of the customer diagnostics tape, boot it and choose
the System Configuration option -- it'll tell you what devices are 
installed (those it recognizes, anyway), how much memory, which disk
drives, etc.

> - How do I write the "mini-root" tape on the TK50 tape unit in VMS?

Instructions for doing this (posted to this list some time ago by 
Robert Alan Byer <byer@carl.a-com.com>) follow at the end of this message.

> - How do I get the rest of the operating system into the machine?
>   (I do have a Linux machine with loads of diskspace and a ethernet 
>    card, but no ethernet to the outside world)

You can probably find someone on your side of the Atlantic to send
you tapes with the installation subsets on them.  If you can't find
anyone over there, I'll be glad to send them to you from the USA...
... at your cost, of course! :-)  

You'll probably want to get yourself some kind of network connection
(even SLIP would be better than nothing) so that you can track the 
current source code -- it has many fixes and improvements that are not
part of the 1.0 release.

-- 
Carl Harris
Systems Engineer
CNS Research and Planning, Virginia Tech
ceharris@vt.edu


Here are the steps you need to generate a NetBSD boot tape from VMS.  You
will need TWO TK50 tapes for this.

First, initialize both the tapes using the following command:

        $ INITIALIZE/ERASE MUA0: ""

Now, the "/ERASE" really isn't necessary, but it can't hurt either and
who knows what was on the tape.  The "" writes a blank label and I don't
know if it makes any difference.

Now take one of the tapes you just initialized and label it as the
"boot" tape and mount the tape as "/FOREIGN" with a block size of 512
using the switch "/BLOCK=512".  So the MOUNT commands looks like:

        $ MOUNT/FOREIGN/BLOCK=512 MUA0:

Now copy the file "TK50-FILE1-10A.;" to the tape.

        $ COPY TK50-FILE1-10A.; MUA0:

Dismount the "boot tape".

        $ DISMOUNT/UNLOAD MUA0:

Now label the other tape you initialize as "mini-root" and place it
in the tape drive and mount it as you did with the "boot" tape.

Once that is mounted, copy the second file to the tape just like you
did the first.

        $ COPY TK50-FILE2-10A.; MUA0:

Dismount the second tape and reboot the machine.  Place the "boot" tape
in and boot with it.

- From here follow the instructions in the "INSTALL" file UNTIL you get
to the "copy" program.  When you boot the "copy" program and it comes
up asking for the source device, unload the "boot" tape and load the
"mini-root" tape and continue on as normal.

I'm researching the reason for needing two tapes, but it seems to work
and I find that more used machines come with VMS loaded than a Unix
file system.