Re: MicroVAX 3300 and VMS 7.3

In article <62edebf1-9b63-4aaa-b3bd-b50be9b05b88
@d38g2000prn.googlegroups.com>, mobeus@xxxxxxxxx says...>
On Apr 30, 9:48 pm, Steven Schweda <sms.antin...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
   What _do_ you have with a CD-ROM drive (and a suitable tape
drive)?  What sort of tape did you have in mind?  A more
complete hardware inventory might make it easier to guess what
might be possible.  (If that _was_ a complete hardware
inventory, then you may be in some trouble.)

Thanks for the rapid response. Digging around I have discovered the
following pieces that I may be able to piece together:

VaxStation 3100. This machine has SCSI and I recall installing 7.3 on
this machine from an external SCSI CD ROM drive some years ago.

TK50Z-GA external tape drive. I'm not sure of the operational status
of this, but I'm sure I can hook it up to the 3100 and see if I can
talk to it.

A non-DEC external SCSI CD ROM drive. I recall using this to install
off the Montagar CD several years ago, so I believe it'll work.

Several blank tapes.

   A typical VMS installation from tape involves a Standalone
BACKUP (SAB) tape (although any SAB you can boot should be ok,
and booting it from any disk would be faster than from a TK50
tape).  The rest of the VMS installation kit could be faked by
simply copying ("COPY") the VMS073.% (and/or DECW073.%) save
sets to a tape (or two, or three, depending).

I have 7.2 on tape, therefore I suspect I should have the standalone
backup software in a bootable form. It sounds like you're suggesting
the 7.2 version should work to allow me to install 7.3. Am I
understanding you correctly?

   If you have another (non-system) disk on the 3300, and a
network, then you should be able to copy the *073.% files to
it (must be in "[000000]"), and install from there.  That'd be
faster than installing from tape, too.

I only have the single DSSI drive at the moment. If I had a SCSI
controller, I'd have more drives :) Time isn't an issue. I've had
the machines clogging up the basement for many years. Several hours
installing from tape won't kill me.

Excuse my ignorance, but could you help me with the syntax of the
commands to copy the files to the tape?

  If I wanted to add a CD ROM drive to the 3300, what
hardware would I need?  I'd appreciate any suggestions.

   Ideally, some SCSI card and some old SCSI CD-ROM drive.
Q-bus SCSI cards tend to be rare and precious, however.  It'd
probably be cheaper to find a VAXstation 3100 system
(intrinsically SCSI-capable) with a TZ30 (or a TK50Z-FA or -GA
SCSI TK50) tape drive, which would let you make the tapes
needed by the SCSI-less system.

Is there any suggestions as to which SCSI Qbus card I should be
looking for? I recall reading that the KZQSA card had compatibility
problems with lots of hardware. Will it work with CD ROM drives?
What about the DSSI to SCSI adapters (HSD05)? Are they only for
drives, or would they work for other SCSI devices?

IIRC, the KZQSA was intended for CDs, and mostly had problems with
real disks, but I could have this backwards.

I have an HSD05 connected to 3 SCSI disks and an RRD46 SCSI CDROM
drive on the DSSI bus of a VAX 4000-400. It works fine. (I haven't
tried a tape drive on it, though.)

Another possibility if you have an Alpha or Itanium running V8.3
is to load the Infoserver emulator and use it to serve the CD to
the VAX. (IIRC, the instructions are in an appendix to the Alpha/
Itanium System Installation and Upgrade Guide, not in the VAX
SIUG. But the VAX SIUG has the instructions about how to boot
from and/or install from an Infoserver.) I'mm pretty sure the
VAX doesn't have to cluster with the Alpha/Itanium, but it is
probably handy if it does. This sounds like a hobbyist system,
which includes cluster licenses.


Thanks muchly.

HTH.

--
John Santos
Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc.
.

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