[Info-vax] Help needed booting VAX 4000-200 from Alpha using Infoserver utility

[dgordonatvsi at gmail.com]

On Thursday, March 21, 2019 at 9:44:42 AM UTC-4, Martin Vorlaender wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 20. März 2019 20:59:28 UTC+1 schrieb terry-... at glaver.org:
> > I am trying to do a clean install of VMS 7.3 (from the Hobbyist
> > Program) on a VAX 4000-200 (real, not emulated) via my VMS 8.4 Alpha
> > DS10 (emulated via AlphaVM Pro). The 4000-200 has an existing
> > installation of VMS 5.4-3 which is working, so I know that hardware is
> > good. Likewise, the emulated Alpha DS10 has been running for years
> > with no problems.
> ...
> > Any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong?
> > 
> > I have never used the Infoserver utility on Alpha VMS, but this VAX
> > 4000-200 has no optical drive and a broken tape drive, so I'm somewhat
> > limited in my boot options to get VMS 7.3 installed.
> 
> I had the same problem bootstrapping a SIMH VAX from a VMS I64 infoserver,
> but I can't find my notes.
> 
> I /think/ it had to do with DECnet altering the Integrity's MAC addresse,
> and the VAX's ISL program requesting files using the hardware MAC address
> at one point. So, temporarily switching off DECnet (and thus operating the
> machine on the hardware MAC address) solved the problem.
> 
> HTH,
> Martin

Or make sure to start the InfoServer software *after* DECnet starts. Although since OP said he actually got a list of services from the boot menu, it means the InfoServer side of that was working.

Unfortunately, the LAD/LAST support in ISL is less than robust and has no error recovery due to the primitive environment in which it is required to operate.