OpenVMS Firmware Variables

February 17th, 2012

After waiting hours for OpenVMS to install on my DEC3000, I was presented with the following error message when I attempted to boot the fresh install:

%APB-F-BADSYSROOT, System root [SYSA.] does not exist, check bootflags

Very disheartening, however it’s a fairly easy fix.  My DEC 3000 was previously used for OSF/1 (i.e. UNIX), so a boot parameter was incorrect.  BOOT_OSFLAGS was set to ‘A’ instead of ’0,0′.  I do not yet know exactly what this means, but it’s simple to remedy:

SET BOOT_OSFLAGS 0,0

Viola!  The system now boots.  I found the solution here.

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LA600 and VMS

February 17th, 2012

I recently won a state surplus auction that included a large amount of old DEC hardware.  Most of it was junk, e.g. old VT420s with screen burn, but there was a diamond in there:  a DEC LA600 MultiPrinter.

This thing is a monster:  a wide carriage dot matrix printer designed for heavy use.  Amazingly enough, the ribbon still has ink and the self test function works.  All I need is some green bar paper, and I’ll be set.

However, short of some scavengers selling refurbished units and a service manual, I cannot find any information on this printer.  Even USEnet fails me.  Nary a printcap to be found.

Because of this, I’m not quite sure how to setup this beast.  So, I’ve decided to try once again to setup OpenVMS in the hopes of at least proving that I can hook the LA600 up to a computer.  This is, of course, assuming that OpenVMS has native way of setting up this printer.

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RTL8168B in Ubuntu Server LTS 8.04

February 22nd, 2010

So, This has probably been hashed out several times on the Internet, but I figure one more time wont hurt.

I decided to install Ubuntu Server 8.04 LTS on one of my Linux machines. After installation, the ethernet card refused to work. It was detected by the kernel, there was a light on the switch, but no joy. Under Debian and Fedora, this card had worked fine.

The motherboard in this machine is a Intel DG41TY with a RealTek RTL8168B ethernet chipset. Apparently, the version of the kernel shipped with 8.04 doesn’t like this chipset, and requires a driver direct from RealTek.


# # Uncomment cdrom source for apt
# vi /etc/apt/sources.list
# # Install build packages
# apt-get install build-essential
# apt-get install linux-headers-server
# # Install Driver
# bzcat r8168-8.016.00.tar.bz2 | tar xf -
# cd r8168-8.016.00
# ./autorun.sh
# # Grab a DHCP lease
# dhclient

It seems to work fine after that.

This particular chip is known to be problematic in other ways. Notably, Windows will turn it off during a shutdown, and the Linux driver won’t be able to start it back up. However, I’m not planning on dual booting, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

This isn’t the only trouble I’ve had with Ubuntu server. The installer failed to mount my /boot partition, causing GRUB to fail since / was on an LVM. It then commenced to install LILO which I haven’t seen since my salad days running Slackware. I thought Ubuntu was supposed to be easy?

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Everyone can hear you fart, with TECHNOLOGY!

October 3rd, 2009

I work with a former DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) employee who told me this anecdote.

DEC was one of the earlier adopters of video conferencing technology, using it to host meeting between its campuses. The cameras in the meeting rooms automatically zoom towards who ever was speaking (presumably by detecting where the loudest noise in the room was coming from). I suppose this was a way to make it seem more natural.

This is all well and good, until someone accidentally ripped a big fart, and everyone on one side of the network knew immediately who.

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Zenith Data Systems

August 20th, 2009

I was recently given two Zenith Data System PC compatible computers: a 286 and a 386. I’ve just recently revived one of them, at least temporarily. I believe it has a flakey power supply. It’s non-standard to boot, which means I can’t just swap it out.

I’m hoping to get these old PCs in working shape so that I can start experiminting with Concurrent DOS and other legacy PC Operating Systems.

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OS/2 Warp 4

August 16th, 2009

I just recently acquired a copy of OS/2 Warp 4, among other things, from a friend. I’ve been working on getting it installed on an old AMD K6 system that I have laying about.

After replacing a bad PSU, I found that the hard drive (just barely over 4 gigabytes) was too large for the stock OS/2 disks.

The solution took some digging, because of the age of OS/2 and the lack of support from IBM. Most IBM pages on OS/2 have been redirected to a end of support notice. Long story short:

  1. Download ibmide.zip from the Hobbes OS/2 Archive.
  2. Replace IBM1S506.ADD on Diskette 1, which is, confusingly enough, the second disk of the installation procedure.
  3. Edit the config.sys file on Diskette 1, so that the first line of the file is SET COPYFROMFLOPPY=1

More details:

IBM1S506.ADD is the device driver for IDE drives. IBMDASD.EXE (DASD is IBM speak for hard drives) is referenced in several places as the current update, but I could not find it.  The file from ibmide.zip is current enough for this effort.

Diskette 1, as referenced above, is actually the second disk of the OS/2 installation series. With my copy, there is an “Installation Diskette”, and a Diskette 1 and 2. One boots off the Installation Diskette.

Setting COPYFROMFLOPPY in config.sys causes the installer to copy files, like IBM1S506.ADD, from the floppy disks, rather than from the CD which has the old version. I would assume that if you had a floppy version of the OS/2 install set, you wouldn’t need this flag, but I do not know.

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Enabling more than 3 gigabytes of RAM in Linux

July 11th, 2009

Doubtless, most everyone knows this, but since I’m just now crossing the 1 gigabyte line in my latest computer, I was left blissfully unaware.

In Linux, the normal, 32-bit kernel can see a maximum of 3 GB of RAM.  To get it to see more one must enable Physical Address Extension (PAE) in the Linux kernel.

Apparently, this is enabled by default in most newer distribution, but not on the Sabayon installation on the hard drive yanked from my old Ultra 20.

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Adding old blog posts

September 23rd, 2008

A note to the readers: all post before this date have been added in from older blogs I’ve kept.

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Dell Mini 9

September 22nd, 2008

I just got my new netbook, the Dell Mini 9. It really just is the cutest thing: very tiny, seems to be well put together. It has Windows installed, because I was impatient and didn’t want to wait for the Linux version. However, I plan to install either Linux or OpenSolaris on it in the coming days.

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First Post

April 13th, 2008

This is the new Weblog of Clark Hale, esquire. I’m currently a SUN Microsystems campus representative for Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. Expect this to be mostly a place holder for when I lose access to my SUN blog.

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