Hi !

On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, Anders Hogrelius SdU wrote:

> On Thu, 13 Jan 2000, ville hautakangas wrote:
> > 
> > BTW, what kind of processor lies within a VXT 2000 ? Is it a VAX or
> > is it something else, and would it be possible to boot them from NetBSD
> > (even if their native bootimage is something VMS'ish)? I would of course
> > crack one open & find out, but the ones I know about are lying about at
> > my university... just wondering.
> > 
> The VXT has a KA something processor, if my memory doesn't fail me, it's
> the same processor as in the VS4000VLC. You can definitely boot it from
> NetBSD. The only thing you will need is the bootimage with the X-server,
> and either BOOTP+TFTP or MOP running. 

Warning... The 4000VLC is supported, but my short analysis of the VXT hardware
showed some weird things. The I/O-memory map seems to be totally different from
the usual VAXstations of this time. So NetBSD won't run... except someone did
a port already.

> I even did something really sick...
> I booted the VXT from a Win95 box running a shareware TFTP and BOOTP
> server. :-)

Wow, you found some useful job for this shit... But look at the resources for
this. Ok, nearly everything works, and with stuff like Tun or eXceed you can
do such things. NT should have everything in the system for such experiments.
I'm booting from a DECstation 5000/240 now, which is also rootfs-server for the
discless machines.

> Obviously DEC thought that it should be possible to use the VXT, even
> if the rest of the hardware wasn't made by them. So far i haven't seen
> any other VAX'ish hardware than the VXT, that support booting with BOOTP
> and TFTP instead of MOP.

DECstations do, but even the newest VAXen don't, as i know. The VXT is thought
as a general-purpose X-terminal, and this is what it can be used for. The
docs i have apply to DECwindows on VMS, the VXT booting from an Infoserver,
but when you look into the configs of this cute software, it knows about XFS,
DNS, lots of stuff which makes it usable in networks without other DEC hardware
at all. I used it as a fine solution to open up to 8 terminals on a DECserver,
because it knows about LAT, and another menu entry opnened a X session on my
Sun.

...Michael

-- 
 Michael@camaronet.de, Rottweil/Germany, http://www.camaronet.de
 Visit the german VAXpage: http://www.vaxpower.de