[Info-vax] InfoServer 150

[Bill Gunshannon]

On 1/29/19 6:19 PM, Bob Wilson wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 3:57:45 PM UTC-5, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> 
>> I started looking at all of the Layered Products disks I
>> have and pulled the ones with an Infoserver directory.
>> On VAXBINDEC975 which would be DEC 1997 Disk 5 I found a
>> cache of documentation.  One of the documents was
>> "INFOSERV035A_SYSOPS_GUIDE.TXT".  In it I found a list of
>> what all the saved configuration settings should be.  I
>> assumed because of its age the battery was probably dead
>> and all the settings would be blank.  I was wrong.  All
>> of them were correct, except for one.  BFLG.  Mine was
>> 0000000 and the book says it should be D000000.  Yes,
>> that's a "D".  I  have no idea  what it means but after
>> fixing that the system booted from the ancient hard disk,
>> Of course, I didn't know the Password but there were
>> instructions to fix that, too.  And they worked.  So,
>> I now have an Infoserver 150 running V2.2.  The next
>> step is going to be figuring out how to clone that disk
>> before I try doing anything with the box.  Once I do
>> that, it's upgrade time.  I will use one of the many
>> CD's I have made over the last wee to bring it up to
>> V3.5  And then the real fun begins.
> 
> 
> Hey, glad to see that it worked out, eventually.
> 
> Btw, that was D followed by seven zero's, right? Your posting shows only six zeros.

Yeah, 7 0's.

> 
> bflg is boot flags, 

That one I knew.  But other than the hack for booting into VMS to
change a forgotten password I have no idea what each bit stands for.

>                      otherwise known as R5. Did you try booting with B/R5:D0000000 ? 

No, I just followed their instructions.

> As far as I know it's effectively the same thing (let's just say that that's my understanding of how the two relate...maybe not!). I know, I know bflg is persistent and /R5: is a one-shot kind of thing, but their effect should be the same.
> 

I just don't understand "D".  I know the boot flags go in R5 but how
do you stuff  a "D" in a register?

> As for managing the box, hah! :-)...not going to touch that one. If you're not follicly challenged already, you will be.

Well, having read the SYSOPS Guide I think I can get it
to work alright.  Supposed to support BA350 shelves so
I should be able to hang a bunch of disks off of SCSI-B.
Probably put another CD and a tape drive off and a backup
system disk off of SCSI-A.  But not until I upgrade to
3.5 and load all the keys.

bill