From: Barry Treahy [Barry@BSTent.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 1999 10:56 PM To: Barry Treahy Cc: Fred Kleinsorge Subject: Re: Hobbyist OpenVMS on a 164LX System Well, I've tried numerous FW's including the DPW which I did locate. All of them fail to even flash. After reading the floppy, the systems screen clears and then the system hangs with the disk access light on. Barry Barry Treahy wrote: > I don't have a FW CD, it didn't come with one so I've used the documented > procedures at AP and DEC to create the diskettes that AlphaBIOS can load. > > Fred Kleinsorge wrote: > > > Barry Treahy wrote: > > > > > > Well, get the "I told you so" out of your system and then if you have > > > been successful, please let me know what you did. > > > > > > There was a lot of mixed opinions about the ability to run OpenVMS on a > > > system based on a 164LX MB, but since some stated that they were > > > successful, I figured why not, it would be a killer hobbyist system. > > > > > > I have attempted numerous versions of FW from both the API site and the > > > Digital site, and both produce the same results. When the system jumps > > > to the bootstrap routine, the screen flashes like its about ready roll, > > > and them boom: > > > > > > halt code = 2 > > > kernel stack not valid halt > > > > > > > When booting firmware, this is the general symptom of "you've booted the > > wrong thing buddy". If you have the actual FW CD, then it should > > automatically boot the correct SRM firmware. > > > > But this isn't gonna help you. What I remember about the LX is that it > > uses the hardware family type code that indicates it is part of the > > reference platform boards (a decendent of the original EV4 PC 64 stuff), > > even though the hardware architecture is closer to the DPW 433/500/600. > > I would expect VMS to pretty much die, or be unstable if you managed to > > boot it. I expect that the simplest way to boot it would be to get a > > DPW433/500/600 and examine PA 2050 - the type code - and then deposit > > this value into 2050 on the 164lx and see if it works... but I have no > > idea if it will. > > If I WL the FW for the above mentioned systems and attempted the AlphaBIOS > upgrade w/o messing with the type code, would it work? I have nothing to > loose and will give it a try when I get home... > > Barry