[Info-vax] RD54 in VaxStation 3200

[Richard B. Gilbert]

starchild wrote:
> On Aug 11, 10:40 am, Cthulhu <cthu... at rlyeh.it> wrote:
>> Il 09/08/2010 03:29, GanjaTron ha scritto:
>>
>>>> Do you have the MicroVAX Diagnostic Supervisor tape?  Most likely not,  they are and were rare... One came with a system but...
>>> Nope, I have absolutely no software or other accessories for it, not
>>> even the console cable. This unit was a toss-out at my university's
>>> lab. Those who worked with it and could tell me more are probably now
>>> retired.
>> Some years ago, in this newsgroup, a kind person whose name I forgot,
>> gave me a ZIP file which contains a dump of a MicroVAX Diagnostic
>> Monitor tape.
>>
>> He included some scripts to generate back a tape and even a bootable
>> disk, and it worked (on the tape).
>>
>> If you would like to try it, let me know and I'll found a way to put it
>> online. Get also a look here:
>>
>> http://www.vaxination.ca/vms/microvax/mv_ii.html
>>
>> They also have a dump of a diagnostic tape, which looks different from mine.
>>
>>         ricordatamente,
>>         Francesco P.
>>
>> P.S. Don't forget that you can netboot that VAX from a SIMH!
>>
>> --http://www.rlyeh.it/http://www.retronomicon.it/
> 
> Just booted a GPX with a RD54 and VMS 5.3. The cables to the RD54
> where in disk-0. The RQDX3 was bad. The controller would not show up
> when I did a show device. Anyway the system has the following boards
> slot 1 KA650
> slot 2 & 3 memory
> slot 4 upper deqna
> slot 4 lower dzq11
> slot 5 qdss base board
> slot 6 & 7 graphic plane boards
> slot 8 upper tk50 controller
> slot 8 lower rqdx3
> I recall when a RD53/54 was bad the drive would always show up as a
> RD51.
> Anybody have a spare RQDX3 they would be willing to trade for a esdi
> controller??
> tks

Have you considered donating that ESDI controller to a museum?  Systems 
that use ESDI will quite rare these days; they are five or six 
lifetimes old in computer years!  Except for museums or collectors of 
computer arcana, they are garbage.