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
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...
Bob
What's the name of the product, going to grep through the SPL CDs I have..
sampsa <sampsa at mac.com>
mobile +358 40 7208932
On 15 Jul 2013, at 23:17, Kari Uusim ki <uusimaki at exdecfinland.org> wrote:
On 15.7.2013 21:56, Cory Smelosky wrote:
On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, Kari Uusim ki wrote:
On 14.7.2013 14:15, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Morning all,
Would anyone be interested in adding IPX to the tunnels? ;)
I have an IPX network partially up at the moment. Is there any OpenVMS
IPX support? There's SNA integration so I don't see why DEC wouldn't
let Novell be unsupported. ;)
Sampsa, you could join easily if you pick up a low-power older cisco
router for absurdly cheap if you don't care about speed. (like a
2524...10BASE-T! It'd be perfect for IPX and low-bandwidth DECnet
tunnels!)
There used to be Pathworks for Novell Netware. A Netware (3.12) server
instance running on VMS. It was talking IPX.
I would be interested in finding that.
It can be found on many SPL CD's.
The first version appeared in May 1994 and the last version was on the 1998 SPL's.
Kari
On 15.7.2013 21:56, Cory Smelosky wrote:
On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, Kari Uusim ki wrote:
On 14.7.2013 14:15, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Morning all,
Would anyone be interested in adding IPX to the tunnels? ;)
I have an IPX network partially up at the moment. Is there any OpenVMS
IPX support? There's SNA integration so I don't see why DEC wouldn't
let Novell be unsupported. ;)
Sampsa, you could join easily if you pick up a low-power older cisco
router for absurdly cheap if you don't care about speed. (like a
2524...10BASE-T! It'd be perfect for IPX and low-bandwidth DECnet
tunnels!)
There used to be Pathworks for Novell Netware. A Netware (3.12) server
instance running on VMS. It was talking IPX.
I would be interested in finding that.
It can be found on many SPL CD's.
The first version appeared in May 1994 and the last version was on the 1998 SPL's.
Kari
On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, Gregg Levine wrote:
On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Kari Uusim ki
<uusimaki at exdecfinland.org> wrote:
On 14.7.2013 14:15, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Morning all,
Would anyone be interested in adding IPX to the tunnels? ;)
I have an IPX network partially up at the moment. Is there any OpenVMS
IPX support? There's SNA integration so I don't see why DEC wouldn't
let Novell be unsupported. ;)
Sampsa, you could join easily if you pick up a low-power older cisco
router for absurdly cheap if you don't care about speed. (like a
2524...10BASE-T! It'd be perfect for IPX and low-bandwidth DECnet
tunnels!)
There used to be Pathworks for Novell Netware. A Netware (3.12) server
instance running on VMS. It was talking IPX.
Kari
Hello!
Oddly enough I remember seeing it demonstrated at a trade show. About
the same time that the pest that became Windows NT (on MIPS and Alpha)
was being discussed. In fact I did ask what about it, made it
different then the regular example Pathworks. Let's just say the
response was an interesting one.
That's...quite interesting. I'm surprised to see that PathWorks for NETWARE was demonstrated at a trade show!
-----
Now why are the Yeti gathered all around your place Cory?
They want my ADSL WIC.
----
Dave don't do that.... Even if I was there, I wouldn't do that. But
oddly enough there is someone out there who calls himself the Doctor,
must be an earlier version of myself. And with backup, that's Liz Shaw
staring at you strangely.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, Kari Uusim ki wrote:
On 14.7.2013 14:15, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Morning all,
Would anyone be interested in adding IPX to the tunnels? ;)
I have an IPX network partially up at the moment. Is there any OpenVMS
IPX support? There's SNA integration so I don't see why DEC wouldn't
let Novell be unsupported. ;)
Sampsa, you could join easily if you pick up a low-power older cisco
router for absurdly cheap if you don't care about speed. (like a
2524...10BASE-T! It'd be perfect for IPX and low-bandwidth DECnet
tunnels!)
There used to be Pathworks for Novell Netware. A Netware (3.12) server
instance running on VMS. It was talking IPX.
I would be interested in finding that.
Kari
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, Bob Armstrong wrote:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cmd/CDU-720_May92.pdf
These are available on eBay for about a $1K last I looked.
Eeek!
You'll need to poke around the VMS web sites for the drivers
Looks like it does MSCP - I don't know why you'd need special drivers
unless maybe to support non-standard sized drives.
Bob
Alternatively, can a -11/730 be booted over the network? I seem to recall in the DEUNA manual that direct netboot wasn't possible but it could be done with an intermediate bootloader of sorts.
Correct me if I'm wrong!
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
On Mon, 15 Jul 2013, Bob Armstrong wrote:
Does anybody have any other ideas? Who else has an old UNIBUS VAX? What
are you doing to disk drives?
You could rig up a MASSBUS-compatible controller that interfaces with either full SCSI/IDE drives or images on said drive similar to how that one museum does it.
I'd love to see your -11/730 working on HECnet!
I've actually had the 11/730 for about fifteen years now - I restored it
out of parts from two different 730s that were scrapped. It's been fairly
easy to keep running except for the drives, and although it's admittedly a
bit slow, it's a cool machine.
Bob
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
No affiliation, caveat emptor etc. but these look very nice for 250GBP delivered:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281135868757
--
Mark Benson
http://DECtec.info
Twitter: @DECtecInfo
HECnet: STAR69::MARK
Online Resource & Mailing List for DEC Enthusiasts.
>> but an RM80 will work fine off of the RB730 controller.
> Not exactly - I knew that the R80, RA80 and RM80 are all the same drive except for the personality modules. Certainly the HDAs are all the same. The >R80 essentially has no personality the RB730 does all the work. I guess the RM80 must have the MASSBUS controller in a separate box? So the >actual drive is like the 730 it has no personality module inside?
From what I recall, the RM80 was "personalityless" as well - the massbus guts must have been outside the disk drive. RM80s had the same "SMD-ish" connectors that the real R80 had, and plugged in and worked fine. I remember poring over the drawings for the RB730 at the time, wondering if a plain non-DEC SMD drive would have worked - it looked like it might have, except the RB730 had some capability to control bad blocks that a normal SMD drive wouldn't support. Never got a change to plug in an SMD drive and see what would happen.
>> 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.
> Do you still have it? I have some spare boards (or alternative, I also have a 725 that needs a new chassis :-)
Nope, had to let it go - it was years ago, and at the time, I didn't have the space to keep it once it was dead (to make space for it in the first place, I had removed the stove from my apartment - I mean, which was more use to me? Needless to say this all predated cheaply available VAXstations). I kept the good cards, and the VS100. As a "one of these days" project, if I never get another UNIBUS VAX, I'd like to burn some new ROMs for the VS100 controller box - it looks like it would make a middlin' fair 68000 system all on its own.
--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.gleason at gmail.com
It been a long time, so I just don't remember if they worked out the box or not on VMS. We mostly ran UNIX on Vaxen in those days, but did have a couple of VMS boxes and frankly I've forgotten which things needed special drivers and which did not. I remember that for some of the HW we had, we had to add patches/drivers.
But what I was pointing out is that Unibus to SCSI is very possible (although might be pricey ;-) But I have to believe the SW to support it should be reasonable easy to find if it does not work out of the box.
If you have SCSI, you should be able to find storage to attach that would be reasonably cheap, reliable and maintainable.
Clem
As a side note: Just last week, I spliced a PCI/SCSI to a fairly modern INTEL*64 (*BSD UNIX) system, so we could retrieve some data from some 25 year old QIC tapes and were successful at recovering some historical stuff from the old days. We had one HW failure which I did was lucky to have a second drive, and of the 5 tapes brought to me, we had 2 media failures on one tape (which we got around and lost only two small files) and two tapes, I had to replace the rubber bands on from two new tapes I had, but once done - we recovered those tapes 100%
On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 11:43 AM, <Paul_Koning at dell.com> wrote:
On Jul 15, 2013, at 11:17 AM, Bob Armstrong wrote:
>> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cmd/CDU-720_May92.pdf
>> These are available on eBay for about a $1K last I looked.
>
> Eeek!
>
>> You'll need to poke around the VMS web sites for the drivers
>
> Looks like it does MSCP - I don't know why you'd need special drivers
> unless maybe to support non-standard sized drives.
That shouldn't matter either. MSCP gets the device size from the device; one of the big points of MSCP is to do logical block addressing and leave geometry as a device detail. I'd be surprised if VMS got this wrong...
paul
On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Kari Uusim ki
<uusimaki at exdecfinland.org> wrote:
On 14.7.2013 14:15, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Morning all,
Would anyone be interested in adding IPX to the tunnels? ;)
I have an IPX network partially up at the moment. Is there any OpenVMS
IPX support? There's SNA integration so I don't see why DEC wouldn't
let Novell be unsupported. ;)
Sampsa, you could join easily if you pick up a low-power older cisco
router for absurdly cheap if you don't care about speed. (like a
2524...10BASE-T! It'd be perfect for IPX and low-bandwidth DECnet
tunnels!)
There used to be Pathworks for Novell Netware. A Netware (3.12) server
instance running on VMS. It was talking IPX.
Kari
Hello!
Oddly enough I remember seeing it demonstrated at a trade show. About
the same time that the pest that became Windows NT (on MIPS and Alpha)
was being discussed. In fact I did ask what about it, made it
different then the regular example Pathworks. Let's just say the
response was an interesting one.
-----
Now why are the Yeti gathered all around your place Cory?
----
Dave don't do that.... Even if I was there, I wouldn't do that. But
oddly enough there is someone out there who calls himself the Doctor,
must be an earlier version of myself. And with backup, that's Liz Shaw
staring at you strangely.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
On 14.7.2013 14:15, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Morning all,
Would anyone be interested in adding IPX to the tunnels? ;)
I have an IPX network partially up at the moment. Is there any OpenVMS
IPX support? There's SNA integration so I don't see why DEC wouldn't
let Novell be unsupported. ;)
Sampsa, you could join easily if you pick up a low-power older cisco
router for absurdly cheap if you don't care about speed. (like a
2524...10BASE-T! It'd be perfect for IPX and low-bandwidth DECnet
tunnels!)
There used to be Pathworks for Novell Netware. A Netware (3.12) server instance running on VMS. It was talking IPX.
Kari
On Jul 15, 2013, at 11:17 AM, Bob Armstrong wrote:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cmd/CDU-720_May92.pdf
These are available on eBay for about a $1K last I looked.
Eeek!
You'll need to poke around the VMS web sites for the drivers
Looks like it does MSCP - I don't know why you'd need special drivers
unless maybe to support non-standard sized drives.
That shouldn't matter either. MSCP gets the device size from the device; one of the big points of MSCP is to do logical block addressing and leave geometry as a device detail. I'd be surprised if VMS got this wrong...
paul
There has been a SA7x rackmount enclosure for RA7x disks. About the same size as RA9x enclosures. Very similar to SF7x enclosures.
I think you could find SA7x's from the large brokers who have old DEC hardware for sale. I guess the pricing would be reasonable.
Kari
On 15.7.2013 17:21, Bob Armstrong wrote:
My 11/730 is not happy the electronics work great and are even
fairly easy to fix, but keeping disk drives on the thing working is
proving to be a challenge. Right now it has two RA81s and one has quit
completely ( servo fine position error ) and the other is flaky. The
original R80 on the RB730 had the HDA die years ago and I ve never been
able to find a replacement.
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.
[Before anybody says Wait RM05s are supported by VMS, that s only
partly true. VMS supported MASSBUS disks on a RH750 or RH780
controller, but VMS has never supported the RH11. Emulex actually sold
a special VMS driver for their card, but I don t have it and besides,
VMB still wouldn t support it. The Spectra Logic manual only talks
about PDP-11 OSes and carefully avoids ever mentioning VMS.]
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. I also have two RC25 drives and several AZTEC controllers, but
those drives were horribly unreliable even when they were new. Neither
works, and fixing them or getting removable media for them is hopeless.
Does anybody have any other ideas? Who else has an old UNIBUS VAX?
What are you doing to disk drives?
I ve actually had the 11/730 for about fifteen years now I restored
it out of parts from two different 730s that were scrapped. It s been
fairly easy to keep running except for the drives, and although it s
admittedly a bit slow, it s a cool machine.
Bob
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cmd/CDU-720_May92.pdf
These are available on eBay for about a $1K last I looked.
Eeek!
You'll need to poke around the VMS web sites for the drivers
Looks like it does MSCP - I don't know why you'd need special drivers
unless maybe to support non-standard sized drives.
Bob
but an RM80 will work fine off of the RB730 controller.
Not exactly - I knew that the R80, RA80 and RM80 are all the same drive except for the personality modules. Certainly the HDAs are all the same. The R80 essentially has no personality the RB730 does all the work. I guess the RM80 must have the MASSBUS controller in a separate box? So the actual drive is like the 730 it has no personality module inside?
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.
Do you still have it? I have some spare boards (or alternative, I also have a 725 that needs a new chassis :-)
Bob
> My 11/730 is not happy the electronics work great and are even fairly easy to fix, but keeping disk drives on the thing working is proving to be a challenge. Right now it has >two RA81s and one has quit completely ( servo fine position error ) and the other is flaky. The original R80 on the RB730 had the HDA die years ago and I ve never been able >to find a replacement.
You are probably already aware of this, and they probably are not be any easier to find now than an R80, but an RM80 will work fine off of the RB730 controller.
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.
--
Lee K. Gleason N5ZMR
Control-G Consultants
lee.gleason at gmail.com
Unibus to SCSI is probably your best bet.
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cmd/CDU-720_May92.pdf
These are available on eBay for about a $1K last I looked. You'll need to poke around the VMS web sites for the drivers, but we had some of these on a couple Unibus machines, including a 780 a >>long<< time ago. I know no reason why it would work for a 730 - although you might need to sysgen on a working system to create the boot disk.
On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 10:21 AM, Bob Armstrong <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
My 11/730 is not happy the electronics work great and are even fairly easy to fix, but keeping disk drives on the thing working is proving to be a challenge. Right now it has two RA81s and one has quit completely ( servo fine position error ) and the other is flaky. The original R80 on the RB730 had the HDA die years ago and I ve never been able to find a replacement.
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.
[Before anybody says Wait RM05s are supported by VMS, that s only partly true. VMS supported MASSBUS disks on a RH750 or RH780 controller, but VMS has never supported the RH11. Emulex actually sold a special VMS driver for their card, but I don t have it and besides, VMB still wouldn t support it. The Spectra Logic manual only talks about PDP-11 OSes and carefully avoids ever mentioning VMS.]
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. I also have two RC25 drives and several AZTEC controllers, but those drives were horribly unreliable even when they were new. Neither works, and fixing them or getting removable media for them is hopeless.
Does anybody have any other ideas? Who else has an old UNIBUS VAX? What are you doing to disk drives?
I ve actually had the 11/730 for about fifteen years now I restored it out of parts from two different 730s that were scrapped. It s been fairly easy to keep running except for the drives, and although it s admittedly a bit slow, it s a cool machine.
Bob
