On Sat, 29 Jul 2000, Douglas Meade wrote:

> Tony,
> 
> *Almost* all the info you are after can be found on:
> 
> http://vaxarchive.sevensages.org/hw/vs3100/index.html

Thanks, this link was very useful.

> I'm not sure the tape install image is currently working.
> The last time I tried it, Chuck McManis (I think) tried
> it at the same time, and neither of us could get it to work.

I don't know. the only images or info that I found that would mention tape
booting, goes back to 1.3 or 1.2. I found tape boot images for 1.3.2, but
not for any later version. Is there a reason for this? It seems like all
version have different images, or, at least, image names on them... I
don't understand.

> The preferred way to install at this time is netboot, with 
> serial console.  Brian Chase's NetBOOT FAQ is an excellent place
> to start.  Watch out for using RedHat Linux 6.x as a server,
> NFS is broken.  

I am working on netbooting now. The only issues I have to resolve are
getting a serial cable, and the linux NFS problems. Do you know where I
can get more info on what kind of NFS problems there are in 6.x and how I
can fix them, without having to use a different system?

> There is a recent CD image floating around too, if you have 
> a CD reader that supports 512K blocksize.  I haven't tried 
> the most recent one yet, but there are a few mails from the
> last few weeks that describe how people have got this to 
> work.  (Matt -- is there one now that is presumed to work
> "out of the box"?) 

Now, I didn't know that the CD reader had to have the 512 block size
ability. I hear that some cdrom's have a jumper on them? Is this true?
	anyway, back to netbsd questions: So I understand that the kernel
so far does not support graphix of any kind, only serial console. So I
will not be able to use my VAX keyboard or my digital monitor, not only
for install (which in the case of netboot is virtually non-existing, as
you dont' run an installtion script), but for regular use as well, right?
OK.
	But I also read about SCSI issues. Will I also not be able to use
my local SCSI disk as root disk, booting the kernel off the net? I read it
could be very slow? 30kB/sec, but I am confused on whether this happens
for all SCSI controllers or not, or whether anyone does this (everyone
talks about netbooting, but does netbooting mean you are just loading the
kernel off the net, or does it actually mean you are doing everything off
the net (diskless)?

> The MMJ connector is 6 pin, offset.  DEC used to make 
> a cable called "DecConnect" that would let you connect
> one of these Vaxtstations directly to a VT-420 terminal.
> They also make a block with number H8571-F that would 
> connect the DecConnect cable to a 25-pin serial connector
> (it only has pins 2,3,6,7 & 20 though).  If you inherited
> this computer, the previous owners might have such 
> cables and blocks lying around.

I will check on this. I have a little different question: NetBSD/vax
support for it's hardware is relatively limited as we have discussed. On
my local VAX hard disk, I believe I still have a copy of VMS running (it/s
a 660MB disk), but when I boot off of it, at the VMS prompt, for almost
any commands I type (I have the manuals for it), I get an error message
saying illegal verb or command or something like that:
1. Do you have any idea why?
2. Would it be more advantageous to get VMS running on it, as it would
support all the hardware?
3. Are there any other OS's out there that have a complete support for the
3100/76 vaxstation? free or not?

Thank you.

> On Sat, 29 Jul 2000, Tony Magni wrote:
> 
> > I am trying to install via tape TK50 (show device under ultrix column says
> > TK13) on a 3100 76 with color, hence I have a few questions:
> > 	I know that I cannot install nor run any kernel with the color
> > card ( that's what I understood, at least). If I remove the card, the
> > machine starts up fine, but the screen (which is a digital original that
> > came with machine) will not show anything. So I would have to do the
> > install from serial console. But: do I have to remove the color card to
> > install over serial, or can I leave it in?
> > 	where can I find pinouts for a terminal serial cable? settings
> > have to be 9600bps and what else? ( I saw this stuff in a posting already,
> > but I just subscribed, and grepping through them now would be crazy)
> > 	To create the bootable tape, I connected the drive to my linux
> > box, and dd'd the gunzipped boot.fs from 1.4.2 onto the tape with bs=512.
> > (This process took like 2hours for that 1MB file! Is this normal?)
> > When I boot off the tape, I get the system message saying to press any key
> > to abort autoboot with a _5 at the end of the line. Then, after a long
> > wait (10-15min) it tries to boot various kernels (like boot netbsd.old,
> > boot gennetbsd...) but they all fail with an error code that was 5 digits
> > long (32something).
> > 
> > thanks for your help.
> > 
> > ----
> > Tony Magni
> > Department of Neurological Surgery
> > University Hospitals of Cleveland
> > (216)844-1306, afm@cwru.edu, 
> > http://discordia.cwru.edu/tinton/  
> > 
> >  - "I know Cleveland: I spent a year there one night!"
> >                               (Bill, San Francisco, 1994)
> > 
> 

----
Tony Magni
Department of Neurological Surgery
University Hospitals of Cleveland
(216)844-1306, afm@cwru.edu, 
http://discordia.cwru.edu/tinton/  

 - "I know Cleveland: I spent a year there one night!"
                              (Bill, San Francisco, 1994)