[Info-vax] VAXStation 4000/60 - some questions

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2013-01-31 18:52:45 +0000, commodorejohn said:

> On Jan 31, 7:39 am, Stephen Hoffman <seaoh... at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
> ...
> Yeah, I shoulda been a little clearer on this. I'm referring to the
> text mode of the graphics board (the 1280x1024 256-color single-
> monitor one,) as run from the VMS command line.

That's the glass TTY.  On a VAX, it's very close to a TTY printer.  Dumb.

> I do have terminals I
> could use over the serial port, I'd just like to be able to use the
> one that already exists in the machine if possible.

There isn't one.

> The exact nature
> of the problem is that I tried to start up EVE/TPU, but it was
> complaining because it didn't know what kind of terminal it was
> talking to.

The glass TTY has no emulation.

> If the built-in text mode really is a dumb terminal,
> though, I suppose it's pointless trying to get a screen editor working
> on it in the first place, and I'll just leave off with that until I
> get DECWindows up and running. (VT52 compatibility would be better
> than nothing, but it looks from the EVE manual like it basically
> expects a VT100.)

Welcome to the joys of — for instance — getting the licenses initially 
loaded onto an OpenVMS system.

Use the serial console line where you can.  Preferably from a decent 
terminal emulator, so you can cut-and-paste over the licenses, and can 
save the commands you've used and the errors and output generated, and 
such.

Without that, you're on a TTY-style terminal with no support for ANSI 
control sequences, and you'll have to mind your typing, and learn to 
use some of line-mode EDT.  (EDIT /EDT, then type HELP at the * prompt.)

> 
>> As for the blue glass TTY display, most[1] folks with a workstation
>> will also configure DECwindows, as this provides workstation-style
>> graphics.  DECwindows is the OpenVMS version of the X Window system.
>> DECwindows provides various applications including a terminal emulator
>> known as DECterm, and the X libraries and programming interfaces.  On
>> VAX, DECwindows was installed in two hunks, the system-specific
>> portions could be selected and installed with most any recent versions
>> of OpenVMS, and the seperately-installed DECwindows system-independent
>> bits, that were installed via the DECwindows layered product kit.
> Yeah, I'm in the middle of working on that; I got the installation kit
> onto the machine, but it's complaining that the kit is "too large for
> the application's buffer." I've seen advice elsewhere that this may
> stem from my having unzipped it prior to copying rather than directly
> on the VAX, so I've gotta burn a new CD with the ZIP archive and give
> that a shot.

If you have the OpenVMS VAX hobbyist disk image kit[1] then whatever 
tool you used to burn the disk may have failed.  It's common to see 
folks using Microsoft Windows tools to replicate the disks, and Windows 
tools[2] failing to record a block-oriented copy of the disk image.  If 
you're on Windows, then look for previous discussions here of 
<http://cdburnerxp.se/> CDburnerPro XP (just install the base tool; you 
don't need any anti-malware tools) or http://www.imgburn.com/> ImgBurn. 
 If you're on a Unix variant, most of the open-source block-burning 
disk-imaging tools there work fine.  If you have a VMS box running V8.3 
or later, COPY /RECORDABLE_MEDIA works.  If you're on (IIRC) OpenVMS 
Alpha V7.3-1 or later, the integrated CDRECORD tool can also work.

—————
[1]A disk image, and not a BACKUP saveset, and not files of the classic 
OpenVMS VAX installation kit.  This kit is a block copy of the 
installation media, or a zipped copy of a block copy of the 
installation kit.  This is not a BACKUP /IMAGE saveset somebody 
generated for you, and not the contents of the installation kit; the 
set of VMS073.A, .B, .C, etc and DECW073.A, etc. that comprise the 
OpenVMS VAX software installation.
[2] Some of the rather well-known commercial Windows media-recording 
tools have some bad versions, and some of the best known fail the worst 
here —
-- 
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