On Sat, 19 Jun 1999, Bertram Barth wrote:

> newfs creates and writes data in host-byteorder. VAX is little-endian,
> PMAX is big-endian. Thus filesystems are not interchangeable.
> Away from the different layout of bootblocks filesystems created on
> i386 and VAX would be interchangeable.
> 
> > Booting the disk in the vax gives this repeating error:
> >  83 BOOT SYS
> > ?50 SCB2NDINT, DKA200
> >  85 RESTART SYS
> 
> I'm not sure at which stage booting fails, but even if first-stage
> works the second-stage boot will fail since the VAX won't find the
> /boot program since filesystem access and inodes are involved wich
> are in host-bytorder and thus invalid for VAX. The above error
> might result from this. In short: it just doesn't work.
> 
> > Isn't it possible to create a bootable disk for a vax with a
> > Decstation or do i need a pmax-version of edlabel ?
> 
> IMHO it's impossible (at least without lots of modifications)
> 
	The filesystem should not be a problem - if the pmax kernel
	has options FFS_EI (see options(4)) it can make a filesystem
	in vax byte order. The boot blocks are more interesting,
	though it should be possible to enable the code for vax
	partitions on the pmax. It would be easier to netboot the vax
	from the pmax though :)

		David/absolute

         -=- They took away my irony, but they left my deceit  -=-