Re: VS2000 + NetBSD

[Holm Tiffe <holm%freibergnet.de@localhost>]

Anders Magnusson wrote:

> Den 2018-04-11 kl. 19:11, skrev Holm Tiffe:
> > ..that thing is going complicated.
> >
> > I have an VS3100 M76 with an installed NetBSD 1.5.3 on it that
> > I used for Netbooting (Mopd) and I connected the fresh installed Disk to
> > it and tried to boot..failed.
> > Next I've netbooted the m76 and looked at the disk..all ok so far.
> > I've erased the first 16 blocks from the disk, copied the first Blocks
> > from the M76 disk and modified the disklable according the actuel
> > filesystem sizes (VS2000 disk is smaller, only the last partition
> > differs).
> > With that disk the VS2000 with the modified Firmware could start the
> > primary loader (sdboot) but the loader couldn't find boot or boot.vax
> > the 2nd loader.
> >
> > I've found out that the primary loader on the M76 isn't the 1.5.3.
> > sdboot since there is aoccurence of cd9660 in the code, I do hvave some
> > other NetBSD Version on the disk that seems to be the source of that code,
> > the xxboot from that Version written with disklabel from 1.5.3 to the
> > disk makes an almost working primary bootstrap, but fails to boot the
> > 2nd.
> > I've tried to netboot that version, it results in an endless row of
> > stray irq 18 ipl 31 on both machines. Don't know anymore what verion
> > that is, think 1.6.0 or 1.6.2 or so..
> >
> > The begin of partition a on the disk is offset 16 blocks to the begin of
> > the disk. How is the concrete layout of that 16 blocks, from where to
> > where is the lable and where is the primary bootstrap?
> All disks on all VAXen uses the same bootstrap code, which is located in
> sectors 0-15 on the disk.  The disklabel is embedded in a bunch of code
> in block 0, together with some magic numbers to make the firmware happy.
> 
> The disklabel itself is at LABELOFFSET, which is 64 bytes into block 0.
> 
> For the VS2k the boot block uses the provided ROM routines to load /boot,
> so if something did not function as expected with the patched routines
> the booting would fail.
> 
> -- Ragge

Thanks Ragge.

I'll look at that.
My Problem is, that the disk that succesfully boots in the VS3100 M76
won't boot in the VS2000.
There must be something wrong in that old disklabel/bootstrap code
besides of the fact that I can't find any reference that someone has
successfully booted NetBSD on an modified VS2000 in the past.

The primary bootstrap xxboot has changed between 1.5.3 and 1.6, that are
different files and I remember that I had all kind of trouble with
disklabel and bootstraps on the different VAXstations that I tried to
install in the past (to find somewhere on that list).

The oldest occurence of that problem that I know of was the old emulex
uc07 controller from the "Applicon Workstation" that I had in th 90ies. Your
remember for sure that I've sent the UC07 with some beer buddles
("Freiberger") to you in Sweden to find out why booting had not worked.
(still don't know)
Someone other sent me an UDA50 to this time (the Applicon was an MVII
and had an QBUS UNIBUS Bridge) and I booted the machine from it, toggeled
in the bootstrap code with ODT every time before booting..
That Applicon worked as FTP server for some years afterwards with that
UDA50.. Don't remember what Version of NetBSD that was, for sure before
1.5.3.
The UC07 could boot VMS (4.something) but not NetBSD. The UDA50 could
boot NetBSD, but the firmware from the CPU don't supported it.
BTW: I think to remember that this MVAX CPU was only an double sized QBUS
Board, here an KA630 is a quad sized one, which CPU type could that be?
Have double sized CPUs existet or ist that my failing memory?


Is there a newer then 1.5.3 NetBSD version from which is known that the
GENERIC or Install Kernel works on an VS2000 on at least the original
MFM disk or with netboot? (w/o that int18 ipl31 thing).

Regards,

Holm
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