[Info-vax] The dangers of extended uptime. Was: Re: swap and page files

[John Wallace]

On Jan 3, 7:41 pm, hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---
undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <kc4l71$ga... at dont-email.me>, Stephen Hoffman
>
> <seaoh... at hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:
> > Alpha loads AlphaBIOS, which gets you nowhere with booting VMS.
>
> That is the case on the PWS.  Didn't older ALPHAs always boot properly,
> even without a battery?
>
> > VAX prompts for the time.  Or boots with a wacky time on older versions, IIRC.
> > Haven't encountered a dead battery in an Itanium.  Yet.
>

As you rightly point out, not all Alphas had AlphaBIOS, Even on those
that don't (or on those with half-flash that had *either* AlphaBIOS or
SRM but never both at the same time), I'm not sure what happened in
the event of a flat battery - what about boot device info and such?


> Isn't there a timeout after which it stops asking for the time?

If the system does actually get as far as booting, then if the TOY
clock time appears invalid, VMS will prompt for a time and if one is
not entered it will wait for TIMEPROMPTWAIT (measured in
microfortnights) before continuing.