The long and the short:

Eric Smith wrote:

> When the machine first comes up, SHOW DEVICE reports the drive as an
> RD51.  After several resets, it finally decides that it's an RD54.
>
> Is this normal?  Or is something broken?

Sounds like something may be broken. RD51 is the default device - so in
other words, the RQDX3 sees that there is a device there, but can't make it
out. Most of the time.

> Is there a console command I can give that will cuase the system to
> not attempt to autoboot?  Right now I've got that by giving it a
> SET BOOT with a bogus device name, but surely there's a better way.

See below.

> Is there a way to abort an attempted boot?  When I first fired up the
> box, it was always trying to boot from XQA0, and I had a difficult time
> getting a command prompt.  I'd hoped that the halt switch on the front
> panel would do that, but it seemed to only make it run the power-up
> diagnostics in a loop.

Set the Halt Enable switch on the back - the toggle that has a circle with
a dot inside (HALT enabled), and a circle with a dot outside (HALT
disabled). If the HALT is enabled, it will not attempt to auto-boot, and
you can press the HALT button on the front to abort an attempted boot.

> If I add more drives, do I need to install more front-panel inserts for
> them?

Yes. Which is really annoying if you don't have a source for them.

> Can a BA123 handle three RD54s, a TK50, and an RX50?

Not without adding another RQDX3. The controller can handle 4 drives - and
the RX50 is considered two. The TK50 is on a sperate controller, so it's
not a factor. And the case has enough power for all of that.

"But of course, I could be wrong..."
 -J. Buck Caldwell