[SunRescue] [OT] Digital Equipment Questions

[Joshua D. Boyd]

I also have a DECstation 5000/133.  Never been able to get mine to work
though. 

>From what I've been able to find, there are no straight VGA cards for DEC
stations.  Further, the video ports are wierd, and I'm told that it is
rather difficult to get DECstations working with any non dec monitors.

To boot the machine to serial, just hook a serial term up to serial port
3, and don't hook up the DEC keyboard.  This forces it to boot to serial
console.  This is where I have trouble, I get to the boot prompt, but then
I can't type anything.  I almost wonder if the RCV line on the serial port
is broken (since the cable works fine on my Sun3).

>From this point, you should be able to use one of the netbsd on pmax
howtos to tell you how to boot the OS (my set of instruction are on my HD
at home).  You can also run linux, and I think OpenBSD.  Not to mention
Dunix.  I'm told that the only reason to use DUNIX is if you have a video
or other card that isn't supported under other OSs.  Most of the lower
level cards are supported.

I would think that you could string all the devices together, but I'd try
to get the machine booting properly before fiddling with extras.  I was
told that the external scsi chain needs to be terminated, even if there
are no external scsi devices.  Thus, I have a terminator attached to the
back of my DECstation.

On the alpha, you should at least be able to install linux.  I think that
OSF will also run on pretty much any alpha.  I don't think that VMS is an
option for that particular machine, but at the moment I'm too lazy to
double check.

I absolutely couldn't tell you which box the digital unix is for. 

--
Joshua Boyd

On Wed, 30 May 2001, Michael A. Turner wrote:

> 	
> 	all,
> 
> 	Since people seem to be groovy with me asking these questions here I
> thought I would post them seeing as I KNOW that their are smart knowlegable
> people here that can help me.
> 
> 	I recently rescued some Digital equipment and need some questions
> answered so first let me describe the equipment:
> 
> 	The first unit is a DECstation 5000/133 , I also have for it a unit
> called a storage exspansion that has some HUGE honking HD in it, two to be
> exact, unknown size at this time. I also aquired an external case with a
> tape drive in it that is part of this system. The fourth peice I beleive
> goes with this system but I am not so sure. It is a Sierra Optical Hard
> drive 1.3GB and I got a cd in caddy with it. 
> 
> 	The second unit is a Digital Alpha XL 300: boots up fine and has 128
> megs of ram, 1gb hd , basically complete and working. Has redhat installed
> (but I do not have the password) and the boot options have been upgraded to
> win 2000.
> 
> 	One copy of Digital Unix in a box, all original Media pluss several
> hand made disk of unknown origin.
> 
> 	Now the questions:
> 
> 	1. In hooking all the items for the decstation up can I string them
> together? all the peices have SCSI 1 style connectors on the backs of them,
> matched pairs. I got cables that I can use to do this stringing together. I
> am not sure if it makes a difference on which of the two connectors on the
> back i hook to/From. Also do I need to terminate the last one with a plug in
> terminator?
> 
> 	2. I need some sort of monitor for this decstation, or some way to
> read output. It has what appears to be a video card in one of the exspansion
> slots. It is of BNC type with a screw type sheaf that I do have the cable
> for. What can I do about getting some sort of signal for this, I got a lot
> of cables with this (basically as we where cleaning out the store room this
> was in I told them to through anything that said digital into my pile) so if
> I should look for a particular cable for this let me know. Can I get a video
> card for this system that does straight VGA? Anyone got one for trade/sale?
> 
> 	3. What can I load on this to get it working and how can I load it?
> Is their any way to hook a cd-rom drive to this to lead from that sort of
> media?
> 
> 	4. On the Alpha I want to load some sort of *nix operating system
> but all teh docs I have read lead me to beleive that this is desinged for
> windows NT, a bad thing in my opinion. I would like to load the digital unix
> onthis machine but from reading the instructions on installing redhat for
> the alpha, this may not be possible or practical. Is this digital Unix I
> have for the decstation or the Alpha?
> 
> 
> 	Ok that is enough brain teasing for now. I am sure that I will have
> more questions as this goes along.
> 
> 	Michael A. Turner
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