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

[Paul Sture]

In article <kc4mtj$f5h$1 at online.de>,
 helbig at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---undress to reply) 
 wrote:

> In article <kc4l71$gai$1 at dont-email.me>, Stephen Hoffman
> <seaohveh 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?

I don't recall any problems with non-PWS Alphas, but maybe I got lucky.

The problem with the PWS was that when changing from AlphaBIOS to SRM, 
the option offered to save the "new" setting involved a power cycle, 
which would of course revert to AlphaBIOS.  I don't know if this worked 
with a completely flat battery, but with a battery with a little life 
left, if you hit the reset button instead, you could get away with it.

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

I don't recall one.  VAX 11/750s were notorious for losing time so I 
usually had SETTIME=1 so that VMS prompted for time at startup. AFAICR, 
it just kept asking...

-- 
Paul Sture