[Info-vax] DEC rtvax300

[David Weatherall]

John Wallace wrote:

> On Aug 27, 4:08 pm, bbrown027 <bbrown... at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Looking for parts (in any condition), data sheet, hardware manual
> > for this part. Willing to pay for consulting. Thanks in advance.
> 
> First, a sanity check. There were various things sold as rtVAXes. Most
> of them were rebadged ordinary VAXes sold with different (much
> cheaper) licencing specifically for use with VAXELN.
> 
> On the other hand, as Mr Moroney rightly points out, the rtVAX300 was
> a module (as used on the KAV30 and in a few other even less well known
> places, not all of which were VMEbus boards [1]) which was a single
> orderable part, and afaik (based on having been UK support for these E
> +RT things back then, including VAXELN and rtVAX300 and...) there were
> no field replaceable parts for the rtVAX300 - if it fails, replace the
> whole module.
> 
> The generic VAXELN docs are in the usual places which VAX/VMS people
> will know about. VAXELN hides the system-specific stuff, so if your
> interest is software, you've already got (most of) what you need. The
> VAXELN Technical Summary, and the Introduction to VAXELN, are
> excellent places to start. Once you've looked at those and if you want
> to at least reproduce the existing setup you'll probably be wanting
> someone familiar with the VAXELN development environment (assuming the
> existing developers have moved on).
> 
> There is a slight chance I may have the specific rtVAX300 docs (such
> as they were) squirreled away somewhere (probably on paper), but until
> I'm sure they will be relevant, I'm not going looking.
> 
> If you are in France or Germany and looking for skills and knowledge
> rather than parts you may find there are relatively local resources
> still around. Can't comment on other countries.
> 
> If you want to buy just one or two of these you may find them on the
> second hand market, or you may be able to find one on a VME board such
> as the KAV30 (or its German close equivalent) and have fun removing it
> and re-using it (if it survives).
> 
> You have posted the same query on at least one other forum where a
> well known search engine finds it. Has that led anywhere yet?
> 
> Depending on what you're trying to achieve, if you ever knew anyone
> capable of building a simple VAX (16MB RAM, on board LAN, not really
> much else) from the ground up in an FPGA, now might be a good time
> to renew that relationship. And now might be a good time to make sure
> someone's got a decent budget ready.
> 
> On the other hand, if what you want to do is replace the software in
> due course, either with something compatible or with something rebuilt
> from the ground up, that's a different kettle of fish. You may well
> still need a decent budget; there weren't that many VAXeln people
> around, and frankly the details of VAXeln may not be the trickiest
> part of such an exercise.
> 
> I've no recollection of seeing anyone write about running VAXeln under
> SIMH, nor do I recollect any reasons why it wouldn't work, at least as
> an evaluation or development tool.
> 
> There's also the small administrative matter of licencing for someone
> to think about if you do decide to stay with VAXELN on hardware other
> than rtVAX300.
> 
> A good time to have established a budget and a plan and to do this
> might have been a decade or so ago when VAXELN, the software which
> runs on the rtVAX300 and various other places, was effectively
> retired. Or a few years before that, when the rtVAX300 and derivatives
> had their "last order dates" announced. However, the real world
> doesn't always work that way.
> 
> More details of why you're interested might help you get a better
> targeted answer. It might also be helpful to say where you (and your
> customer?) are, though if this eventually ends up as a software-
> focused project, much of it may be amenable to working remotely.
> 
> Sorry for inconsistent capitalisation but with VaXelN, as with sUsE, I
> can never remember what's right.
> 
> [1] Here is one example use of an rtVAX 300 module other than on a
> KAV30 or similar
> http://www.recycledgoods.com/products/Honeywell-51401088-100-CNI-HDW-F
> W-FLASH-W-RTVAX-300-Daughter-Card.html Other industrial automation
> vendors also had similar products. But it was a long time ago, and
> there's unlikely to be much evidence on the Interweb.

I have my VAX/ELN application running under SIMH. It normally runs on
KAV-30, or rather the 'German close equivalent' AMX400VME. We still
have both in service but are moving the application to Charon. There
the VAX/ELN part was easy. The challenging bit is access to VME. It's
working but there are some bottlenecks in our home-built QBUS/VME s/w &
h/w interface that Stromasys are helping us with.

The SIMH version has no VME Access of course.

Cheers - Dave

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