On Thu, 20 Nov 2003, Antonio Carlini wrote:

> Were there different controllers for the XMI bus on the VAX 6000
> and the VAX 7000? News to me (but I've been wrong before). Anyone
> have any controller names?

Here's what the Datadoc - DEC/VAX 7xx0/10xx0 manual says:

[...]

You need to be trained to work on these systems. The VAX 7000 is not "just
like a VAX 6000". The only common part is the XMI, which is used only for
I/O and has a different backplane, power supply and options.

[...]

Table 4:
VAX 7000/10000 - XMI Options
Option	Adapter type	Max per XMI	Max per System	Min firmware rev
CIXCD(1	CI		4		10		70.00 [4611]
DEMFA	FDDI LAN	4		7		1.4 [0514]
DEMNA	NI LAN		4		16		8.02 [0802]
DWMBB	BI		1		3
DWMVA	VME bus
KCM44	CSS high end tape
KDM70	RA/TA/ESE storage 3		12		3.00 [1E11]
KFMSA(2	DSSI		5		12(3		5.06 [A2A6]

1( Must be CIXCD-AC (T2080-YA). Note, different ucode for AXP and VAX.
2( Must be KFMSA-BA (T2036-Ax)
3( Assumes 1 x CIXCD. Otherwise, maximum = (25 - No of CIXCDs) / 2

[...]

4.1 Unsupported XMI options

The following XMI options are not supported on DEC/VAX 7000/10000
systems. Be careful if upgrading from a 6000 to a 7000, you cannot tranfer
these modules.

Option	Adapter type	Module	Comment
CIXCD	CI		T2080	Use CIXCD-AC (T2080-YA)
DWMBA	BI		T2012	Old BI adapter, use DWMBB
DWMUA	Unibus			Mythical XMI to Unibus adapter?
KFMSA-AA DSSI		T2036	Old DSSI adapter, use KFMSA-BA

---------

Well, there you have it.

> Typically the VAX 6000 used BI-bus controllers for CI, although
> it could use the XMI-based ones for disk, tape, network and CI.
> AFAIK, the same ones worked everywhere.

Appearantly not.

> That doesn't mean all controllers would work in all systems. As
> an obscure example, the DSB32 VAXBI synch controller would not
> work in a VAX 7000 system. The microcode locked the VAXBI bus
> in a way that would not work when the VAXBI was hung off an
> XMI bus.

Maybe this is the problem for the other adapters (such as the CI) as well.

> Similarly, the XMI CI controller had carnal knowledge of the
> system page tables, so it needed different firmware depending
> on whether it was used on a VAX or an Alpha. But the only
> difference was the firmware.
> 
> The XMI SCSI controller was Alpha-only: I expect that was mostly
> a firmware issue (not worth expending effort on a VAX variant at
> that point in the lifecycle), but I do not know for sure.
> 
> So, names and numbers please, someone. I'd be interested to know -
> one day I'm bound to trip over a VAX 7000 and lug it home: it 
> would be a terrible waste of effort to pick up the wrong 
> controller :-)

Now you have the neccesary information. Well, I actually suspect you
already have it, but maybe you haven't been reading it like I have. :-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol