Everhart,Glenn
From:	His Holiness the Reverend Doktor Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated [xenophon@irtnog.org]
Sent:	Wednesday, May 13, 1998 4:12 PM
To:	Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com
Subject:	VAXstation 2000 answers, and more questions...
Hello again!  I want to say a quick thank you to all who responded via
the newsgroup and personal email.  Here's a summary of the answers to
my questions about the ports on the back of my VS2000 and how to go
about installing OpenVMS:

	- Brian Schenkenberger says that the 9-pin connector is the
	  console port, and that plugging in a BCC08 cable and a
	  terminal will get me access to the console.

	- Ehud Gavron, Chad Maloney, and Roger Ivie expand this
	  explanation, stating that not only is the 9-pin printer
	  port a serial port, but that there are also two more serial
	  ports embedded in the video console connector, for a total
	  of three serial ports: TTA0, TTA1, and TTA2.  If a video
	  console is attached, the two embedded ports are connected to
	  the keyboard and the mouse.  I'm assuming that TTA0 and TTA1
	  are the two embedded connectors (which explains why I
	  haven't gotten my terminal to show anything yet under
	  NetBSD...I'm trying to spawn a getty to tty00, not tty02).

	- Mr. Maloney also recommend installing CMU/IP in place of
	  DECnet.

	- Mr. Maloney and Mr. Gavron go on to say that the 25-pin
	  connector is used to connect a BA40 expansion box.  The BA40
	  has connectors for a TK50 drive and for the old-style "3
	  rows of pins" SCSI disk connectors for RD54/RD53/RD52 hard
	  disk drives (this style of connector is also common on old
	  Sun workstations, in my experience).  Without the expansion
	  unit, I will be unable to connect other SCSI devices to this
	  machine.

	- Wolfgang Moeller describes a 50-pin on-board SCSI
	  connector.  However, the VS2000 does not know how to boot
	  from SCSI disks, only from the TK50 (and variants) tape
	  drive, certain models of which are hard-wired to ID 1 (and
	  can be booted via the BOOT MUA0 command).

	- Mr. Moeller says it may be possible to cross-boot VMS from a
	  small internal disk to an external SCSI disk.  He's written
	  an experimental generic SCSI driver for VMS version 5.5-2
	  called 'PK2KDRVR', available from
	  <ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/vms/pk2k/>.  Apparently, I can also
	  buy a bigger internal disk, provided I can find an MFM hard
	  disk drive.

	- Gregg Economou mentions a switch that activates the serial
	  console on the printer port.  He also says that the 25-pin
	  communications port is only useful for hooking up a TKZ50
	  and isn't a 100% SCSI.

	  I was really happy to hear from Mr. Economou.  My other last
	  name is Economou, also.  Small world, I guess.  :)

	- Mr. Schenkenberger, Mr. Gavron, Mr. Maloney, Mr.  Ivie, and
	  Mr. Economou all suggest booting the machine into a cluster
	  to install VMS.  Mr. Maloney uses a INFOserver along side
	  his VS2000.

Of course, these various answers cause me to ask a few more questions:

	- What's a BCC08 cable?

	- I have a 25-pin-to-Centronics cable, a SCSI CD-ROM drive, an
	  external SCSI enclosure (which is the reason for the
	  Centronics adapter), and the OpenVMS Hobbyist CD-ROM from
	  Montagar Software Concepts.  I'm getting the feeling that my
	  idea of plugging the CD-ROM drive into the VS2000 and
	  booting the OpenVMS installer that way isn't going to work.
	  Is this the case?

	- Which version of OpenVMS would you recommend for the budding
	  hobbyist (read that as "UNIX geek with no VMS experience
	  whatsoever")?  5.5-2 or 6.1?  The Hobbyist CD-ROM comes with
	  both versions of VMS.

I would think the last question would be a useful addition to the
OpenVMS FAQ.  Perhaps the addition of a "newbies" or "hobbyists"
section is warranted?

And thanks again for all your responses.  I greately appreciate it.

-- 
His Holiness the Reverend Doktor Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated
Discordian Episkopos of Ambidextrous Thinking and Licensed SubGenius Minister
'Salted Litter' of rhit.gas.stations.bigfoot / mhm 21x16 / K-RAD D00D
"I'M SORRY MONKEYBOY, I'M AFRAID YOU CAN'T TOUCH THAT MONOLITH" -MegaHAL