From: CRDGW2::CRDGW2::MRGATE::"SMTP::CRVAX.SRI.COM::RELAY-INFO-VAX" 21-JUN-1990 08:02:35.12 To: MRGATE::"ARISIA::EVERHART" CC: Subj: Re: RE: Booting 9track S/A Backup Kit Received: by crdgw1.ge.com (5.57/GE 1.70) id AA02925; Thu, 21 Jun 90 07:23:49 EDT Received: From RVAX.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU by CRVAX.SRI.COM with TCP; Wed, 20 JUN 90 13:04:10 PDT Date: Wed, 20 Jun 90 13:01 MST From: KAPLAN@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu Subject: Re: RE: Booting 9track S/A Backup Kit To: INFO-VAX@SRI.COM Message-Id: <784A11393DDF400864@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu> X-Envelope-To: INFO-VAX@SRI.COM X-Vms-To: IN%"INFO-VAX@SRI.COM" (Please pardon my blabbering if this has already been answered to everyone's satisfaction) The key to getting a MicroVAX up from a TK50 standalone BACKUP kit was (as I remember) doing a B/20000 at the console. This was before doing a B MUA0: was documented. When you looked in the V4.4 Internals and Data Structures Manual (IDSM), this setting (bit 17 of R5 ) was not documented. On page 3-49 of part 4 of the DEC Version 5 Update Express for the VMS IDSM you will find (FINALLY!!!!) an up-to-date list of the general register contents for boot-time. Included is the following verbage about bit position number 17 in R5 (and I quote): "If set, indicates that the system device is different from the boot device, which is magnetic tape. Used for booting stand-alone BACKUP from magnetic tape" With a TK50, the "disk image" that STABACKIT.COM put out there on the tape is loaded into memory and control transfered to the appropriate image on the disk (if you have not looked at it, this interesting business is done with a "RAM disk"). Since a MicroVAX has VMB in ROM and STABACKIT.COM does not include VMB.EXE on MicroVAX kits that it builds, this image is probably SYSBOOT. In reading STABACKIT.COM, I find the following very interesting comments (hope DEC does not get P.O.ed for my including it here): : : $ ! X-26 ELM0007 Eva MacKay 25-AUG-1987 $ ! Add support for TU81 1/2 inch mag tape (treated just $ ! TK50 tape cartridge) $ ! : : ... so, I conclude that all you have to do is B/20000 at the console to get a 1/2 inch stand alone BACKUP kit to boot. Since I'm not sure what you call a your 1/2 inch tape, I don't know what will happen if you just mention its name behind the B console command, but I'd be interested in hearing what happens when you try. Hope that this helps. Happy VAXing! (Please, no flames about this salutation. I have VAXed, I do VAX, and I plan to continue VAXing. When I plant blue flowers around my many VAXes, I have a flaxen VAXen. And, of course, when I send a friend a telefax message about how the revenue agents are charging me more money since my landscaping has upgraded the machine room, the communication is refered to as a flaxen VAXen tax FAX. And, when the communication line that this telefax goes over experiences errors, the sending telefax machine receives flaxen VAXen tax FAX NAKs. When the sending telefax machine tells the receiving machine that it has received the NAKs that were sent, we call it a flaxen VAXen tax FAX NAK ACK. From the point of view of the network that experiences all of these communications errors and the ensuing communications between the two telefax machines, this episode is known as a flaxen VAXen tax FAX NAK 'n ACK attack. And that, my friends, is how you loose your mind in this business.) Ray Kaplan - I know what I don't know W) Computer Center - University of Arizona - Tucson, AZ, 85751 - (602) 621-2857 H) P.O. Box 32647 - Tucson, Arizona 85751 - (602) 323-4606 BITNET: KAPLAN@ARIZRVAX INTERNET: KAPLAN@RVAX.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU -------------------------------------------------------------------- <> --------------------------------------------------------------------