[Info-vax] RD54 in VaxStation 3200

[Steven Schweda]

   That card order looks pretty good to me.  My manual doesn't
mention the graphics cards, but otherwise the recommended
order is basically: CPU, memory, very stupid serial cards,
Ethernet, smarter serial cards, tape, disk.

> [...] You probably also need a RQDX3 manual as well so you
> can get the cabling right...

   I don't see why.  So far as I can tell (without tearing the
whole thing apart), there's a 50-conductor (SCSI-like) cable
from the RQDX3 to someplace I can't see (I assume something on
the bulkhead), and that gets split up into separate 20- and
34-pin connectors for the cables to hard disk drives "0" and
"1", and another 34-pin connector for the floppy drive(s).
I'm still guessing that Fixed Disk 0 gets DS=1, and, if you
had it, Fixed Drive 1 would get DS=2.  (Mine's been converted
to SCSI, and it has a TK50 tape instead of an RX50 floppy
drive-pair, so none of these holes gets used on mine, but the
dangling 50-conductor (SCSI-like) cable is still in there,
waiting for the return of the RQDX3.)  I still have a
labeled-bad RD54 in the basement which says that it came out
of a VS3200, and it's set to DS=1, but it could have been
fooled with in the (many) years since it was removed from
service, so I can't be sure that DS=1 is correct, but that's
still my guess.


> [...] MicroVAX Diagnostic Supervisor tape? [...]

   MicroVAX Diagnostic Monitor.  ("DIAG MAINT" is better than
the more common "DIAG CUST", particularly if you need to
format a virgin RD-series disk.  (Or virginized.  Not many
true-virgin RDxx drives left in the world.)