On Thu, 4 Mar 1999 rdkeys@unity.ncsu.edu wrote:

> The questions now are:
> 
> 1.  Which is better to use as a NetBSD box, the VS3100 with the VR262
>     or the MV3100 with a serial something or other terminal and net.
> 
>     Perhaps I could make a server out of the MV3100 and an Xbox out of
>     the VS3100?

VAXstation 3100 w/VR262 would be best, unless you prefer serial consoles.
Ragge has successfully run an Xserver on a VAXstation 3100, but you've no
mouse support (and maybe keyboard?)   You could display things on it
though :-) 


> 2.  No tapes seem to exist for these things, but would a standard scsi
>     tape work?

Standard SCSI tapes should work.  DEC made variants of the TK50 with SCSI
interfaces.  

> 3.  I have a spare RZ24 and a spare RZ26L drive.  Combining those with
>     a pair of RZ23's in the MV3100 might make a reasonable small home
>     server?  (Yes/No?)

Well, given that the SCSI driver runs only in PIO mode, you may have to
clarify what you mean by serving.  The VAXes make great home machines, but
until we slicken them up a bit, they're probably better client machines
than server machines.  Fileserving from a 3100 with the present disk
performance would be less than ideal... but it does work.

> 4.  Will normal scsi drives work in both machines or do they need DEC
>     firmware.

Normal drives work fine.

> 5.  I was noticing in the NetBSD 1.3.2 VAX tree that floppy boots seemed
>     to exist.  I know the VS3100 can use the floppy, so a boot on that
>     via floppy may be reasonable?  Can a floppy be put on the MV3100
>     and used to boot that?  What size floppy (720K or 1.4M) should be
>     used?  There seemed to be two sets of floppy images.

It plausible :-)  People have discussed it, but I've never known anyone to
succeed.

> 6.  Is there a more recent VAX port than the 1.3.2 port?

There are always the binary snapshots under NetBSD-current. Last I knew,
they were at 1.3K heading fast towards a 1.4 release (with many
improvements).

> 7.  Any pointers to VS3100 or MV3100 hardware faq's about?

There are a number of resources referenced from the NetBSD/vax port pages
under http://www.netbsd.org/

-brian.
---
Brian "JARAI" Chase | http://world.std.com/~bdc/ | VAXZilla LIVES!!!