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

[Robert Jarratt]

"Wilm Boerhout" <w6.boerhout at planet.nl> wrote in message 
news:49cfcaa1$0$8974$703f8584 at news.kpn.nl...
> 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


I tried USE DEFAULT, but this is what happened when I did:

SYSBOOT>  USE DEFAULT

SYSBOOT>  SET STARTUP_P1 "MIN"

SYSBOOT>  SET VAXCLUSTER 0

SYSBOOT>  CONTINUE

%SYSBOOT-F-PFN allocation overwrites CI ucode.
?06 HLT INST
    PC = 00208526
>>>

So, I have been trying lots of different values for NPAGEDYN (when I 
realised it was in bytes and not pages) and I either get the PFN error or an 
error about insufficient non-paged pool. One combination gave me:

   OpenVMS (TM) VAX Version V7.3     Major version id = 1 Minor version id = 
0

UNABLE TO TAKE BUGCHECK AT THIS POINT IN BOOTSTRAP
BUGCHECK CODE IS 0000063C
EXCEPTION PC IS 8031C212
STACK POINTER IS 806E55C8
?06 HLT INST
    PC = 8029B811

About to try this one again as it could have been a glitch.

Regards

Rob