NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/comp/sys/dec/6516

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-17 | 1.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!spcvxb!terry
From: [e-mail] (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: VAX 11/750 and InfoServer 100
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 17 Dec 92 06:52:33 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: St. Peter's College, US
Lines: 23

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
> Sorry, no can do.  You can boot it from a disk on an HSC (connected via CI
> adapter), or from a local disk.  But the boot ROMs in the 750 (and the 730 and
> 780 as well) do not know how to boot from an Ethernet controller.

  Since microcode release 104 or thereabouts (and the mandatory FCO that came
with it), one of the ROMs is reserved for loading the microcode patches from
tape, leaving 3 boot ROMs free for devices (one of which has to be the TU58).
Since you're already spinning the TU58 to load the PCS patch bits, you could
leave the console boot switch set to the TU58 ROM, which will cause you to
load BOOT58 and then VMB from TU58. Once you do this, you can boot any device
that VMB knows about, as well as not needing the funky 750-style boot block
on the boot device.

  However, the VMB distributed with VMS kits (as opposed to the subset VMB in
ROM on newer systems) doesn't understand Ethernet devices. There is partial
support in there (I happened to be in the listings the other day looking),
and the IDSM gives the register values for booting from an Ethernet card, but
it doesn't work (as of VMS V5.4, the last time I looked).

    Terry Kennedy        Operations Manager, Academic Computing
    [e-mail]    St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
    [e-mail]    [phone]