Subject: Re: How do I get VMS (ducking now)
To: None <port-vax@netbsd.org>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
List: port-vax
Date: 06/12/2001 03:01:44
>> [... SCSI drives ...]
> OpenVMS uses the console I/O routines to access the disk during
> bootup and shutdown (crash). Those routines (in PROM) cannot access
> beyond 1.073GB (if you try they wrap around ... not nice).
How...bizarre. What on earth produces that limit? I've seen Suns with
a somewhat similar limit, but in their case it strikes right at the 1G
mark (it's because they always use 6-byte CDBs, which can't address
blocks past 0x1fffff, which is the 1G point). Even doing things with
transfers starting at 0x1fffff doesn't explain it, unless your transfer
size is at least some 74M, which is implausible.
Not that it matters, but this is so weird that I just gotta ask what's
behind it.
On a completely different note, I went thorugh my larval stage on VMS.
While this was some 15-20 years ago, I recently had occasion to touch a
VMS machine and found I remember a surprising lot of it. While it
definitely is *not* UNIX, it's a strong second best - and indeed, in
some respects I like it better than UNIX (the privilege scheme is a
particularly good example).
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