Running NetBSD on a VAXstation 3540

[Michael Thompson <michael.99.thompson%gmail.com@localhost>]

The Rhode Island Computer Museum has a VAX 3540 currently running OpenVMS 7.3.

We would like to run NetBSD on this system. We used a VAX 3900 Simh to install NetBSD 10.1 on a disk image, copied the image to a SCSI disk drive, and tried to boot it on the 3540. This was displayed on the console:

CPU08 >>>boot dka100

VMB V1.0

%VMB-F-ERR, PC = 000008EF

%VMB-I-STS, R0 = 000001A4

CPU08 ?06 HLT INST

CPU08     PC = 000010DE

CPU08 Failure.

CPU08 >>>

So it looks like there is something in the 3540 hardware that the generic kernel doesn't understand. The same disk works fine in a VAX 3100 M38. We also tried a NetBSD CDROM with the same results. We have not set up a MOP boot server yet to try that.

We would like to add support for the 3540 to NetBSD. What would you recommend as a way of finding out where the kernel died?

--

Michael Thompson