[Info-vax] Trying to boot a MicroVAX II with VMS 7.3

[Wilm Boerhout]

JF Mezei vaguely mentioned on 29-3-2009 20:51:
> Robert Jarratt wrote:
>> I think that NPAGEDYN should be less than 8MB but 
>> SYSBOOT insists that the minimum value permitted is 16384.
> 
> You need to read the "UNITS" next to a paremeter's permitted values.
> NPAGEDYN is in bytes !
> 
> Also, for 7.3:
> 
> SYSGEN> HELP SYS_ NPAGEDYN
> 
> This parameter can grow on demand to a certain extent, but I suspect
> that this grown isn't enabled this early in the boot process.
> 
> 
>> I think there is a chance that there is a hardware problem but is it likely 
>> to manifest itself like this?
> 
> I suspect your problem is with sysgen parameters.  With a 16 meg  All
> Mighty Microvax II, I was able to get TCPIP Services running, but I
> really needed to play wit some sysgen parameers (notable INTSTKPAGES
> which is not adjusted by autogen).

The key issue is not to second-guess VMS itself on a first boot. Do not 
set parameters yourself, except VAXCLUSTER and STARTUP_P1. The OP's 
approach by using a tape generated on a MicroVAX 3100 is viable, 
provided you do a conversational bootstrap on the initial load, and use

SYSBOOT> USE DEFAULT

This will *almost* allow you to boot /any/ VMS version on /any/ 
hardware, at least in my experience with lots of physical machines and 
emulator stuff as well. You may then proceed with an almost empty 
MODPARAMS.DAT and let AUTOGEN sort it out.

My SIMH VAX-11/780 runs DECnet as well as TCP/IP within 8MB. Not 
DECwindows though :-(

/Wilm