10 Mar 2003 03:30
10 Mar 2003 04:56
More on 3-board KA630
der Mouse <mouse <at> Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
2003-03-10 03:56:48 GMT
2003-03-10 03:56:48 GMT
I started swapping CPU boards. Right away I found one that called
itself V1.3, but it didn't work with three boards of RAM.
But shortly thereafter I found one that passed POST with all three
boards of RAM. However, upon trying to boot....
597532+27460+142864+[48264+54453] total=0xd48b5
[ preserving 102724 bytes of netbsd a.out symbol table ]
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000
The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
?04 ISP ERR
PC = 80000290
>>>
On investigation, it turns out that the ISP was set to 801A4DFC, an
address whose PTE is 10000D26 - note that the valid bit is clear.
Not a fried CPU board, either, or at least not grossly fried;
unplugging the private-bus connector from the third RAM board makes it
work fine (with 9M, of course).
I suspect it may have run into the ISP redzone. Investigation is
underway.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse <at> rodents.montreal.qc.ca
(Continue reading)
10 Mar 2003 05:30
10 Mar 2003 05:35
Re: More on 3-board KA630
der Mouse <mouse <at> Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
2003-03-10 04:35:09 GMT
2003-03-10 04:35:09 GMT
> i don't think a ka630 will ever access more than two memory boards, > no matter how you cut the ribbon cable or what kind of backplane you > put it in. at least, that was my experience at decwrl. This is getting very interesting. I got an off-list note from someone saying he[%] can confirm that a KA630 can work with three RAM boards. [%] A guess, based on the first name in the headers and sig. The more I look at it the more I'm coming to the conclusion that there _must_ be a CPU baord version difference involved, especially with different people speaking from personal experience saying directly contradictory things. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse <at> rodents.montreal.qc.ca / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
10 Mar 2003 05:45
Re: More on 3-board KA630
Chuck McManis <cmcmanis <at> mcmanis.com>
2003-03-10 04:45:06 GMT
2003-03-10 04:45:06 GMT
Well I've never done it on a 630 but have done it on a 650, 655, and 660. --Chuck At 11:35 PM 3/9/2003 -0500, der Mouse wrote: > > i don't think a ka630 will ever access more than two memory boards, > > no matter how you cut the ribbon cable or what kind of backplane you > > put it in. at least, that was my experience at decwrl. > >This is getting very interesting. I got an off-list note from someone >saying he[%] can confirm that a KA630 can work with three RAM boards. > >[%] A guess, based on the first name in the headers and sig. > >The more I look at it the more I'm coming to the conclusion that there >_must_ be a CPU baord version difference involved, especially with >different people speaking from personal experience saying directly >contradictory things. > >/~\ The ASCII der Mouse >\ / Ribbon Campaign > X Against HTML mouse <at> rodents.montreal.qc.ca >/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
10 Mar 2003 05:46
10 Mar 2003 06:18
Re: KA630 RAM
Anthony Anderberg <ant <at> hutchtel.net>
2003-03-10 05:18:11 GMT
2003-03-10 05:18:11 GMT
> What failure does "?6" indicate?
>
> Are you _sure_ the KA630 is supposed to work with three boards of RAM?
I don't know nearly as much about these things as other
people on this list, but I do have a KA630 (in a BA123-A),
and perhaps more importantly I have an original manual.
The KA630-A has 1MB of RAM onboard and supports two
MS630 memory modules. It also has 64K of boot/diag ROM.
One CPU and two memory modules are supported in the first
four slots because the C and D rows (bottom two) in those slots
have a separate local memory interconnect (no mention why
there are 4 slots to support a maximum of 3 cards...)
Backplane Grant Continuity supports the top half of slots
1-4, then 5-top, 5-bottom, 6-bottom, 6-top, 7-top, ect.
According to my manual there are three memory card versions:
M7607-AA - 1MB
M7608-AA - 2MB
M7608-BA - 4MB
but I have two 8MB cards that are an after-market part
made by Camintonn, part number CMX-830. A quick search
using Google even turned up a few for sale... that's probably
your best bet.
BTW: with two 8MB cards installed the 1MB of RAM on the
CPU gets disabled for so we don't exceed our 24-bit RAM
address limit.
(Continue reading)
10 Mar 2003 09:31
Re: KA630 RAM
Jochen Kunz <jkunz <at> unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
2003-03-10 08:31:44 GMT
2003-03-10 08:31:44 GMT
On 2003.03.09 10:22 der Mouse wrote: > Are you _sure_ the KA630 is supposed to work with three boards of RAM? I tried a KA630 with three RAM boards some time ago too. Didn't work. I don't know what error I got. Since I rescued a third party KA630 RAM board in a dumpster diving session with 16 MB on a single board, I have no need for further investigations.
10 Mar 2003 17:56
Re: Observations on NetBSD VAX on old machines.....
Carl Lowenstein <cdl <at> mpl.ucsd.edu>
2003-03-10 16:56:43 GMT
2003-03-10 16:56:43 GMT
> From: der Mouse <mouse <at> Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
> Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 00:52:12 -0500 (EST)
> To: port-vax <at> netbsd.org
> Subject: Re: Observations on NetBSD VAX on old machines.....
>
> >> (9M - that _is_ maxed-out for a KA630, right?).
> > Nope, max on a KA630 is 16M
>
> Oh, cool!
>
> Is it possible to have more than two RAM boards, or do RAM boards >4M
> exist? I thought those were the limits, and those give 9M. (Is there
> a limit at 16M? I'd expect something like two 8M boards, or four 4M
> boards, either of which I would naïvely expect to give 17M.)
8M RAM boards exist. The address-mapping circuit that is chained from
board to board maps out the 1M on the CPU board if there are two 8M
add-on boards. As I recall, the memory board furthest from the CPU
gets addresses starting at 0, the next one starts where the first
ended, and the on-CPU memory starts where that ended. So if you
have two 8M boards the CPU memory gets mapped above 16M, which is
outside the address range of the KA630 architecture.
carl
--
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
clowenst <at> ucsd.edu
10 Mar 2003 18:01
Re: Observations on NetBSD VAX on old machines.....
Carl Lowenstein <cdl <at> mpl.ucsd.edu>
2003-03-10 17:01:17 GMT
2003-03-10 17:01:17 GMT
> From: der Mouse <mouse <at> Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
> Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 01:51:47 -0500 (EST)
> To: port-vax <at> netbsd.org
> Subject: Re: Observations on NetBSD VAX on old machines.....
>
> >> You can run three RAM boards?
> > The MVIII upgrade came with a 4 connector cable to run 3 x 8M + CPU
> > for a 24M system (and then 48M with 3 x 16M)
>
> And that works with a MVII? That's good news; I would not have
> expected the bus to Just Work with more devices than it's designed for.
> But then, the KA630 dates from the era when DEC overdesigned heavily.
>
> Would I be correct to assume that it will Just Work to take a piece of
> 50-pin ribbon cable and attach four connectors to it? Maybe add two
> connectors to a stub SCSI cable swiped from a SPARC? Or is there
> something magic about the cable itself? (I note the connectors are
> physically compatible with SCSI 50-pin ribbon cable connectors of the
> old SE flavor....)
Implicit here is that you are using a BA123 box with the backplane
that has 4 CD-interconnect slots. Not the BA23 with only 3 CD slots.
carl
--
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
clowenst <at> ucsd.edu
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