Clem Cole [clemc at ccc.com] wrote:
We had both SI and Emulex controllers (SBI based) .....
but I did not think those will work on a 730
The 730 has a "built in" disk controller, the RB730. Other than that
there was no special bus (e.g. SBI) for the 730 and all peripherals were
UNIBUS. No SBI based controller will work in a 730.
performance based customers
No performance based customer would have even considered a 730 - it's tied
with the MicroVAX-I as the slowest two VAXes ever made. The 730s claim to
fame was the small size and low cost. You have to remember that it was
designed in the late 70s and shipped in the early 80s. I worked at DEC at
the time and I saw one around 80 or 81, and I remember that at first I
thought they were putting me on. I couldn't believe that they'd put an
entire VAX into a box that size! I thought it was really just another PDP-11
and someone had hacked the front panel graphics - after all, it looked just
like a 11/24 or 44. But it was a real VAX, and it's still the smallest
UNIBUS VAX ever made.
Bob
We had a number of CDC 9766 & Fujistu Eagle drives at UCB on the 780s and 750s. I don't remember special cables other than the two SMD cables from the controller. We had both SI and Emulex controllers (SBI based) for them, and I do remember there was a preference for one over the other, but at this point I do not remember which was considered better. I think is was the Emulex ones - but I did not think those will work on a 730 - we never had them at UCB.
By the time of the 730 was released many (??most??) performance based customers were abandoning Vaxen and moving to Masscomp, Sun, and Apollo (68K based) because the 730 was expensive and so much slower [I used to goad one of the lead 730 designers that the 730 was the greatest gift to the UNIX / 68K community, because it meant most anyone could easily beat a "Vax" in a benchmark]. Actually it was interesting time, you could tell a lot about a firm in their advertising. The solid firms with products that lasted would benchmark against the 780 or 785, the weaker ones would use a 730 and talk about it being a "Vax" and then in fine print say it as 730.
Clem
On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 10:14 PM, John Wilson <wilson at dbit.com> wrote:
From: "Bob Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com>
>As I remember, the RM02/3/5 were CDC 9760-something drives, which were SMD.
>Of course it's possible that the DEC OEM versions had customized interfaces.
Yes, DEC made a bunch of gratuitous changes, although it might be possible
to duplicate them with another drive. IIRC they reversed the polarity of
most/all of the signals on one cable (it's differential so you can fix that
by swapping wires), and the direction of the unit-select lines is reversed
(so the plug in the drive tells the RM adapter what Massbus unit to be,
rather than telling the drive what SMD unit to be). I think there are
a few other things but the basic I/O interface is the same.
My 11/730 has a UDA50 + RA81 instead of the RB730, and was bootable last
time it was anything-able, FWIW. So I'd think a CDU720/etc. would work
fine too.
John Wilson
D Bit
On 15.7.2013 23:29, Sampsa Laine wrote:
What's the name of the product, going to grep through the SPL CDs I have..
The latest one is a part of the Pathworks V6.0 kit.
The (complete) kit is called PWRK060.
When finding products on the SPL distributions, there is a very helpful web site which you might want to use:
http://de.openvms.org/spl.php?product_name=netware&upi=&platform=&condist_i…
Kari
From: "Bob Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com>
As I remember, the RM02/3/5 were CDC 9760-something drives, which were SMD.
Of course it's possible that the DEC OEM versions had customized interfaces.
Yes, DEC made a bunch of gratuitous changes, although it might be possible
to duplicate them with another drive. IIRC they reversed the polarity of
most/all of the signals on one cable (it's differential so you can fix that
by swapping wires), and the direction of the unit-select lines is reversed
(so the plug in the drive tells the RM adapter what Massbus unit to be,
rather than telling the drive what SMD unit to be). I think there are
a few other things but the basic I/O interface is the same.
My 11/730 has a UDA50 + RA81 instead of the RB730, and was bootable last
time it was anything-able, FWIW. So I'd think a CDU720/etc. would work
fine too.
John Wilson
D Bit
Boyanich, Alastair [Alastair.Boyanich at au.fujitsu.com] wrote:
Was there ever a UNIBUS DSSI controller or were they all XMI only ...
... don't know about UNIBUS, but there was a QBUS DSSI controller - the
KFQSA, M7769. I've got one of those in a uVAX-III. I'd use a UNIBUS one if
I had it (I even have some spare RF drives) but otherwise the RA7x/RA9x
drives seem easier.
Bob
lee.gleason at comcast.net wrote:
I remember poring over the drawings for the RB730 at the time,
wondering if a plain non-DEC SMD drive would have worked ....
Yeah - I was wondering the same thing. The RM80 Technical Manual doesn't seem to be online, but the RM MASSBUS Adapter Technical Manual
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/www.computer.museum.uq.edu.au/pdf/EK-RMA…
has a lot of information about the RM80 too. It looks like the RM80 used the same MASSBUS Drive Control Logic box as the RM0x drives. As I remember, the RM02/3/5 were CDC 9760-something drives, which were SMD. Of course it's possible that the DEC OEM versions had customized interfaces.
The RB730 Technical Manual is also online
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/730/EK-RB730-TD-001_VAX-11_7…
and it has a description of the R80 interface, but this version doesn't look that much like SMD to me.
Bb
On 07/15/2013 10:21 AM, Bob Armstrong wrote:
I have several vintage SMD drives, including a couple of nice CDC
9715 drives, that I was thinking about using to replace the RA8x
drives. I have not one but two UNIBUS SMD controllers an Emulex SC21
and a Spectra Logic 121 that I thought would do the job, but after
reading the fine print yesterday that turns out not to be true. Both
controllers emulate RH11s with RM0x drives attached, which is fine if
you re a PDP-11 but VMS has never supported that configuration.
...
I ve got some RA7x drives, but there s no easy way to mount them or
supply power to them. I m not sure if there ever was a rack mount
chassis for RA7x drives. There was for RA9x drives, but those I don t
have.
There are rackmount chassis for RA7x drives. They hold four drives, two in the front and two in the back, and each take up half a rack width...meaning a pair of these chassis, holding up to eight RA7x drives, is about the same size as an RL02/R80/RA81/etc.
I have a bunch of these. I'm hanging onto them (I have a LOT of machines here) but they're not tough to find. Let me know if you'd like me to take some pictures of them so you can more easily identify them when they pop up.
That said, though, I have a shortage of SMD drives here, and you said you have a bunch of those; I MIGHT be interested in some sort of a swap at some point.
Does anybody have any other ideas? Who else has an old UNIBUS VAX?
What are you doing to disk drives?
I have an R80 on my 11/730 and an RA81 (though now dead) on my 11/750.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 07/15/2013 11:00 AM, lee.gleason at comcast.net wrote:
My first home machine was an 11/725, to which I added an RB730
controller , and I used it with an RM80 for a number of years, until
power problems killed a bunch of boards in it. I hated losing it, since
I had also added a VAXstation 100 workstation peripheral to it - at the
time it was a pretty exotic setup for use at home. I'm still hanging on
tothe VS100 gear, in case another Unibus VAX comes my way.
Do you have the VS100 interface board? I saw one on eBay a couple of months ago, and I slapped myself in the forehead really hard. ;) I had a VS100 for many years, and gave it away around 1993 because I could never find the interface board for it. When I saw that board hit eBay, I really wish I'd kept the VS100..
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Was there ever a UNIBUS DSSI controller or were they all XMI only like the KFMSA ? That d be pretty convenient to use either:
$DSSI_CONTROLLER <-> HSD <-> BA350 <-> SCSI to CF adapter
or
$DSSI_CONTROLLER <-> HSV <-> BA356 <-> SCSI to CF adapter
Al.
On 15 Jul 2013, at 16:32, Bob Armstrong <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
Cory Smelosky [b4 at gewt.net] wrote:
You could rig up a MASSBUS-compatible controller that interfaces
with either full SCSI/IDE ....
No MASSBUS controllers on the 730, remember? The only MASSBUS controllers
supported by VMS are the RH750 (for the 11/750) and RH780 (for the 11/78x).
I'd love to see your -11/730 working on HECnet!
LARGO::, 2.6. It's been up many times and will be again, as long as the
current disk holds out.
Alternatively, can a -11/730 be booted over the network?
No, there's no netboot for any 7xx VAX...
Had a feeling I was misremembering.
Bob
