[Info-vax] OpenVMS Hobbyist licence - howto

[Chris Scheers]

Bob Eager wrote:
> On Sat, 02 Jan 2010 22:47:09 -0600, Chris Scheers wrote:
> 
>> Bob Eager wrote:
>>> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:48:06 -0500, John Santos wrote:
>>>
>>>> In article <hh7t52$psg$03$1 at news.t-online.com>, M.Kraemer at gsi.de
>>>> says...>
>>>>> Bob Eager schrieb:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, I have a stock of DPES-31080. But an IBM 0662 was a fraction
>>>>>> too big. Note that this was in terms of what the console firmware
>>>>>> reported (too big, and it gave a silly small number, obviously the
>>>>>> size modulo 1GB).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Another machine (VS model 60) tokk 4GB disks, but the IBM DDRS-34560
>>>>>> was too big before 'modification'.
>>>>> These 1, 2 and 4GB limits are not uncommon with antique systems.
>>>>> Ultrix <4.2 can't cope with 1GB+ disks, no version of Ultrix supports
>>>>> partitions >2GB, HP-UX <=9 doesn't install on disks >2GB, etc etc. I
>>>>> wasn't aware the more modern VS4000 line has such limitations too.
>>>> I'm 99.99% certain it doesn't.  The 6-byte SCSI command limitation
>>>> only applied to the firmware on some early 3100's. IIRC.  All the
>>>> later systems used 10-byte SCSI commands.
>>> Pretty sure my VS4000-60 maxes out at 4GB.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> Doesn't matter once it's booted (if it boots) of course.
>> It is possible that it is a firmware issue.
>>
>> On my 4000-60s and -90, the console reports the disk size modulo 8GB, so
>> drives larger than 8GB report incorrectly.  They still work.  I use a
>> couple of 10GB (8.5GB formatted) drives without problems.
>>
>> The one problem I do see is that drives with a SCSI INQUIRY string that
>> is longer than 15 bytes will not autoboot.  (I think the error code is
>> D4.)  They will manually boot correctly.
>>
>> Unfortunately, most newer drives seem to have long INQUIRY strings.
> 
> Yes, I might have thought that...but the same drive, once 'fixed' to 
> report no more than 4GB, does boot OK, and I'm pretty sure it autoboots.
> 
> Lots of different firmware on both sides, no doubt.

Thinking back, I'm not sure that I tried any disks between 4GB and 8GB 
in size.  So it is possible that what I was seeing as modulo 8GB was 
really modulo 4GB.

In any case, I haven't had a problem with larger drives.

If you have a disk larger than 8GB, VMS 5.5-2 or earlier can have 
trouble with it.  That is a VMS restriction, not a VS4000 restriction.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Scheers, Applied Synergy, Inc.

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