lunchbox VAXen, was Re: [HECnet] Introducing myself... and my little network

Lunchboxes! :-) And there are images for new boot ROMs available for those which will allow you to boot from the on-board SCSI host adapter, ... I've heard of this, but I haven't seen it. As I recall, the onboard SCSI adapter uses programmed I/O (no DMA!) so it's really slow. For a TK50 nobody would ever notice, but for the system disk it's a problem. Better to cluster boot one, diskless. FWIW, an RD54 isn't necessary. The 2000 can easily be convinced to use _any_ MFM drive, DEC or not. You can get VMS V4 on a 30 meg drive, maybe even 20, if you're determined. Long ago I wrote up a little description of all the VS 2000 disk formatter parameters, what they meant, and how to fake them for non-DEC drives. Google ancient Usenet postings if you're interested. Bob