Jan ---
    Congratulations on getting the 4000s running, and welcome to the club...
I don't really have any useful answers, just comments...
> ----------
> From: 	Jan Gray
> 
> <<<<<clipped>>>>>
> 
> I design and build new processors in FPGAs (see www.fpgacpu.org) and I
> am getting excited about porting NetBSD to a new FPGA CPU.  (First job
> is porting GCC, glibc, binutils, and GDB, but I have some big short-cuts
> in mind there.)
> 
Ever read the ClassicCmp mailing list? (Not sure, I may have missed...)

<<<<<clipped>>>>>

> 5. QUESTIONS
> 
<<<<<clipped>>>>>

> 6. What is the definitive story with the MMJ-DB9 cable CRPT bit errors?
> I even tried an H8571-J (see
> http://www.partner.compaq.com:9003/public/cheat_sheets/cables/padapters.
> html) on my PC's DB-9 serial port, and I still see these errors.  I also
> see them on a cable with just TXD+ TXD- RXD- RXD+ wired up.  I find the
> only thing that definitely works is to disconnect the cable, power on
> the machine, wait until it is well through self-test, then connect the
> cable.
> 
Well, once you get NetBSD up  and running, why would you need to shut it
down? ;-)

> 8. Does anyone have a source for the DEC adapter that converts 3 BNC
> with sync on green into a standard VGA connector?
> 
This, I would like to know too, just in case the 19" monitor for my DEC
3000/400 ever gives up it's magic smoke...


---   David A Woyciesjes
---   C & IS Support Specialist
---   Yale University Press
---   mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu
---   (203) 432-0953
---   ICQ # - 90581
Mac OS X 10.1.2 - Darwin Kernel Version 5.2: Fri Dec  7 21:39:35 PST 2001
Running since 01/22/2002 without a crash

> ----------
> From: 	Jan Gray
> Sent: 	Monday, February 4, 2002 1:31 AM
> To: 	port-vax@netbsd.org
> Subject: 	netbsd/vax newbie experiences and questions
> 
> Inspired by Chuck's House of VAX, and eager to relive those halcyon days
> of my youth in which we happy few Waterloo undergrads shared a
> VAX-11/780 running 4.1 BSD with a load average around 100, I bought a
> VAXstation 4000/60 off eBay last summer.  It arrived damaged, with about
> fifteen gold leads mashed together on two of the QFPs.  It languished in
> the garage.  (Later I bought two more 4000/60s, unnecessarily, it turned
> out.)
> 
> [I apologize if any of the following recollections are in fact
> mis-recollections.]
> 
> 
> 1. FIRST INSTALL TRAVAILS
> 
> I recently installed NetBSD 1.5.2 for the first time, on one of the'60s.
> Here's what worked for me.
> 
> I built a MMJ-DB9 cable (but still get lots of CRPT errors unless I plug
> it in after the machine starts self-tests).  I flipped up S3 and got to
> the console and experimented with ? and SHOW and SET and so forth.  I
> attached an AUI-10baseT transceiver and flipped the network connect
> switch to the AUI (10base5) side, away from the 10base2 coax side.  I
> tried network boot using with B ESA0.  It worked ESA0 ... RETRY ... .
> 
> From a RedHat Linux 7.2 box, I fetched and built and fixed (loop.c) and
> installed mopd.  It served up the MOPBOOT.SYS image (linked to
> lowercase-mac-address.SYS in /tftpboot/mop).  Then I configured
> /etc/bootptab and ran /usr/sbin/bootpd to serve BOOTP to the VAX.  Then
> I configured and started NFS.  I kept having trouble with NFS mount
> failing, but in the end it worked, although I don't recall how I fixed
> my auth problem.)
> 
> At this point, I was booting esa0, loading MOPBOOT.SYS, loading
> netbsd.ram, and running sysinst.  I had downloaded binary/sets/*.tgz to
> a PC serving FTP, and attempted to install these sets by FTP.  Sysinst
> failed in network configuration.  My mistake was in answering all the
> prompts, gateway, hostname, etc.  When I would do that, I would get some
> peculiar error about unable to contact the gateway (IIRC).  Curiously
> enough, my network *was* running, so I was able to drop down to /bin/sh,
> mount /dev/sd0d on /mnt, and fetch the binary sets via FTP.  Then I
> reran sysisnt but alas, it insisted on repartitioning my sd0 drive.
> Fortunately I had a second disk in this '60, so I did the same thing,
> but to sd1d.  Then I reran sysinst and took the binary sets images from
> sd1d.  Then I booted NetBSD from my hard disk!  Wonderful!
> 
> In the VAX console I SET FBOOT 1 and SET HALT 2 (or was it 3?).  This
> seems to be all that is needed for the machine to quickly boot to NetBSD
> automatically on power up.
> 
> I studied /etc/rc.d/, especially network, and /etc/rc.conf and found to
> set a static IP address for a machine with an le0 ethernet I should set
> up /etc/ifconfig.le0; for DHCP I should instead (of ifconfig.le0) add
> these lines to /etc/rc.conf:
> hostname="<whatever>"
> dhclient=YES
> dhclient_flags="le0"
> 
> Then I tried to install NetBSD on the second 4000/60, which had only one
> disk.  The sysinst network configuration problem, and its "ftp (from
> /bin/sh) the sets to a second hard disk" workaround would not work
> there.  After some experimentation, I found that if I entered nothing
> ("") to most of the network configuration prompts, except for host IP
> address, then network configuration just worked, and I was able to fetch
> the binary sets with ftp, from inside sysinst.  Much nicer.
> 
> Then, inspired, I used a very fine knife and carefully straightened all
> the mashed QFP pins on the first, broken 60.  It booted fine and NetBSD
> installed easily.
> 
> 
> 2. 4000/90 TRAVAILS
> 
> I also purchased a 4000/90 on eBay.  It just arrived, in bad shape, with
> the graphics daughtercard partially sticking out the back of the
> machine, with its two-row fine pitch motherboard connector broken and
> header pins bent and shorted.  A "loose screw" rattling around under the
> motherboard was revealed to be a capacitor that had broken off the
> graphics card.  Again, I carefully straigtened the pins, and reinserted
> the graphics card, and booted.  Unfortunately, this card exhibits
> errors.  Fortunately the presence or absence of the card seems to have
> no effect on NetBSD.
> 
> As soon as I got to the console >>> prompt, things seemed a little
> peculiar  When I would issue a command, even ? or SHOW CONFIG, the text
> did not burst forth at 9600 baud, but rather in fits and starts -- blast
> out three or four lines of text; pause for 100 ms or so; then another
> couple of lines; and so forth.  As I recall, at the time, removing the
> questionable graphics card did not seem to help; but now the problem is
> gone and the '90 console writes text just as fast as the others do.
> 
> This time, I installed NetBSD on an old 4 GB Seagate drive.  (BTW I net
> booted off EZA0, not ESA0 as on the '60s).  This worked beautifully.
> 
> Then I found I could not auto boot on power up because of an error, SYS
> 0512 or some such, which discussions on this list identify as a
> corrupted NV RAM problem.  I also find that whatever I set HALT to, in
> the range 1-3, it gets reset to 0 (on next power cycle?).  Oh well.
> 
> This old hard drive was noisy, so I tried a newer SCSI-3 68-pin SCSI
> Compaq 10K RPM drive, OEM'd from Seagate, I think.  I used a 68-50 pin
> adapter; the drive was already in SE mode.  This drive seemed fine
> during show config.  Using netbsd.ram, during autoconfig, I get some
> interesting messages:
> 
>   probe(asc0:1:0): max sync rate 6.25MB/s
>   probe(asc0:1:0): unrecognized MESSAGE EXTENDED; sending REJECT
>   probe(asc0:1:0): max sync rate 20.83MB/s
> 
> Is this benign?  I assume the drive is offering commands or information
> that NetBSD will not use.
> 
> After booting netbsd.ram, and fully installing the system using sysinst,
> I was disappointed that no matter what I tried, I could not then boot
> rka100 (or whatever) from the VAX console.  If stopped, the drive
> doesn't even spin up.  I surmise that the drive speaks a newer richer
> SCSI command protocol, too rich for the old VAX ROMs' taste.
> Fortunately, after booting NetBSD via another disk, I have had no
> problems mounting and using the new drive under NetBSD.
> 
> This new 10K RPM drive is FAST.  time cat /usr/bin/* >/dev/null takes 9
> s using the old drive and about 6 s using the new one.
> 
> 
> 3. VLC INSTALL "CAKEWALK"
> 
> No problems at all!  Last week, a friend went to the RE-PC (computer
> surplus) in Tukwilla, WA, and bought each of us two VAXstation VLCs at
> $30 each.  (I think the Q1 starting price is $40.)  These installed
> NetBSD beautifully.  My friend is running OpenBSD on his two.  There are
> about 5-6 more, by the way, with keyboards, not that they are of any
> use.
> 
> I also picked up 6 AUI-10baseT transceivers at Boeing Surplus (Renton,
> WA) for $5 each.  BTW, Boeing Surplus had some pretty hefty SGI Indigo^2
> IMPACTs and IMPACT 10000s's for $50-$150, and even a couple of (very
> substantial) Onyx Infinite Reality's (?) for $200.
> 
> 
> 4. THANK YOU
> 
> I second the recent sentiments of Matthew Sell -- I am very grateful for
> this fantastic, free, high quality product.  It is quite apparent how
> much effort and craft and love have been poured into it.  Thank you.  I
> have already learned a lot, had a lot of fun, have been rereading my old
> 4.3 BSD text, and now (thanks Chuck) certain family members now know
> that while Kestrels may be push-overs, you should often let sleeping
> Ice-monsters be.
> 
> I design and build new processors in FPGAs (see www.fpgacpu.org) and I
> am getting excited about porting NetBSD to a new FPGA CPU.  (First job
> is porting GCC, glibc, binutils, and GDB, but I have some big short-cuts
> in mind there.)
> 
> 
> 5. QUESTIONS
> 
> 1. Re: 4000/90 corrupted NV RAM (SYS 0512): Has anyone fixed theirs, and
> if so, how?  An earlier message indicated a MOP program might fix it.
> 
> 2. Why can't my VAXen boot off my newer 10K RPM drive?  Is there
> anything I can do except netboot my kernel off an NFS share, or boot
> locally from an older SCSI disk?  Can I boot (fetch netbsd) off one disk
> but use another for my entire file system, including the root partition?
> 
> 3. For automatic boot on power up on my other (non-90) machines, should
> I set HALT to 2 or 3?
> 
> 4. I have 1 4000/90, 3 4000/60s, and 2 VLCs.  I think I want 1, 1, and
> 2.  I'm willing to donate one of the unwanted 4000/60s to the NetBSD/vax
> effort -- do you folks need a new build or test machine...?
> 
> 5. I am looking for more RAM for my 4000/90.  Can I use 4000/60 memory?
> What other systems' memory is compatible with 4000/90?
> 
> 6. What is the definitive story with the MMJ-DB9 cable CRPT bit errors?
> I even tried an H8571-J (see
> http://www.partner.compaq.com:9003/public/cheat_sheets/cables/padapters.
> html) on my PC's DB-9 serial port, and I still see these errors.  I also
> see them on a cable with just TXD+ TXD- RXD- RXD+ wired up.  I find the
> only thing that definitely works is to disconnect the cable, power on
> the machine, wait until it is well through self-test, then connect the
> cable.
> 
> 7. With any of the graphics displays (VLC, 60, 90) I think -- is it
> possible to access and write the frame buffer RAM?  I have searched
> google for specs on these cards to no avail.  Are there VAX VMS driver
> sources available that would reveal how to address the frame buffer
> memory and/or control regs?
> 
> 8. Does anyone have a source for the DEC adapter that converts 3 BNC
> with sync on green into a standard VGA connector?
> 
> 9. Has anyone else ever seen the VAXstation 4000/90 console print output
> in "fits and starts"?  Any idea what the cause might be?
> 
> 
> Thanks again everyone.
> 
> Jan Gray
> Gray Research LLC
> 
>