[Info-vax] OpenVMS Hobbyist licence - howto

[Bart.Zorn@gmail.com]

On Dec 31 2009, 2:42 pm, Bob Eager <rd... at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:13:26 -0800, Steven Schweda wrote:
> > Bob Eager wrote:
>
> >> Pretty sure my VS4000-60 maxes out at 4GB.
>
> >    I doubt it.  Show me a document with some authority.  Or
> > run an experiment.
>
> >> But, as I said before (and it seems to have been lost in the welter of
> >> comments) I wasn't suggesting that was because of 6-byte SCSI commands.
> >> However, 4GB would be the limit of an unsigned 32 bit integer, and I
> >> suspect the firmware just wraps at 4GB.
>
> >    Wraps _what_?  If it's counting disk blocks, and not bytes,
> > then 4GB loses its magic significance.  I've never heard of a
> > byte-addressable disk.
>
> It's just a theory. I'm talking about internal counting, not talking to
> the disk.
>
> My observation is simply that it reported a DDRS-34560 as a very small
> disk indeed. When I modified the disk to report a size fractionally
> smaller than 4GB, it then reported that size.
>
> --
> Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
>  http://www.mirrorservice.org

For what it is worth:

I have two FUJITSU M2954S-512 (4 GB) disks in my VAXstation 4000-90.
The console reported the size as 56 MB.
I have just upgraded the console firmware from V1.0 to V1.4 and now
the size is reported correctly.
I have never had any problems booting from these disks and I have done
many fresh installs of many OpenVMS versions on them.

I suppose that similar things apply to other 4000 models.

Regards,

Bart