CLAYTON@xrt.upenn.EDU.UUCP (03/21/87)
Information From TSO Financial - The Saga Continues... Chapter 1 - March 20, 1987 I read the questions concerning the PRO console on the 85/87/88 series systems with a certain amount of glee. I currently have two 8700's and one 8500 system in a cluster with various other systems, and a number of gotcha's have come to the surface. But first to the questions asked by Scott Bailey of Xerox. > What kind of software gets run on the PRO350 consoles? The PRO has both P/OS that can be run to do such things as edit files, delete and copy files. When in this mode, it is not talking to the 8XXX system, and is not logging console messages a this time. The MIC diags can also be run to determine such things as the rev levels of the boards and what boards MAY be having problems. I say MAY because when I was having the memory upgrade to 44MB the diags where NOT telling what boards were bad and would constantly give conflicting answers on successive runs. The MIC diags can run from COM files and if you look at them you might get the feeling that some of the MIC developers came from ALL-In-1 engineering. There are a considerable number of variables and statements that can be referenced in the command files to determine rev levels and status of operations. Really neat stuff. There is also the CONTROL program that lets the PRO act as a terminal for the 8XXX just like the old LA series terminals. Some nifty features of the CONTROL program is that a hardcopy is not required as the CONTROL program has a cyclic file that it writes any console messages to and this file can be scrolled through to go back in time and see what happened. This feature may sound nice but there is no search command so you have to hit the 'PREV SCREEN' key to go back, which when any distance has to traveled can take considerable amounts of time. The grape vine says the next version will have a search ability and it should be available REAL SOON NOW. > What happens if your PRO350 dies? Can you just plug in a terminal or > something in its place? As long as the 8XXX stays running you are okay. Once it dies, you are SUNK. The 8XXX can run without the PRO connected and the only action you need to take is to enable operator controls on another terminal through the REPLY command. As for connecting a regular terminal up the port the PRO uses, no dice here. While the cable is a 50 pin job, do NOT get your hopes up for a FAST load of the microcode from the PRO to the 8XXX. Its an 8 bit bus (PPI) over the cable and the micro load takes FOREVER. I swear that there is a TU58 cartridge inside the PRO and the PRO is really a 730 in disguise. Another little thing we have done is that a separate stand comes for the PRO to be placed on. This stand provides a plate and mounting brackets for the PRO to stand upright on the BACK of the stand. This can result in craning necks and bent floppies unless the PRO is standing in the middle of wide open spaces. Our decision is to place the PRO on top of the table and the tube on top of the PRO. This way, the floppies are a snap to insert and its VERY easy to see the access light when something goes to read them. > Who supports or distributes the console software? Software Services? > Field Service? What kind of media does this arrive on? SDC distributes the software for DEC but the floppies which contain both the diags, P/OS system and CONTROL are shipped to the local field service office (LFSO). The result is you only get floppies when the machine is first delivered and those floppies only contain the P/OS system and the microcode. Your LFSO then comes out with a considerable array of floppies and places the diags on the PRO. Software Services has nothing to do with it, that I have found out to date. The LFSO gets all updates currently on floppies and we have twisted our LFSO to make and stock a backup disk for the PRO containing all the needed software. I just went through a war over a memory upgrade and PRO upgrade that took 17 floppies and consumed 3 hours of time to load. The current version of the PRO console software is 4.0, and is REQUIRED to be at this level for the 16MB memory arrays that are available for the 8XXX. We had the 2nd 8500 production unit which had a 3.0 PRO console and the memory upgrade fails when it attempts to make the memory configuration file. Do not look to have more than one (1) 16MB memory array added to a 8500 cpu right now as the memory upgrade is on hold. We got caught on the upgrade, which resulted in us getting a replacement cpu, due to problems with the cycle time of interrupts and the system loads that we had on the machine. The net result was system crashes at least every two (2) hours and the memory upgrade package going on engineering hold. The vine says 64MB arrays are coming, I only hope they work better. > Of course, we'd love to hear about 'gotcha's' before we get zapped... 1. Do NOT rush right out and buy a modem for use with the MDS01 maintenance console, since the modem is NO longer supplied with the system. The RDC capabilities with the 85/87/88 series is a SUBSET of what is available on processors such as the 780. You have to have an operator on site and on the phone to RDC to type commands such as register displays and other such commands. The vine says a new release which will give RDC the full suite of commands at their beck and call should be here REAL SOON NOW. 2. Beware that bit 16 of register 5 should be set to a '1' so that pages of memory that fail a boot time memory test, will be mapped out as invalid pages. This translates to having a '10000' masked into register 5. These pages should show up in a SHOW MEMORY command under the line which has the 'PAGES USED' section. This should ONLY be done until Version 4.6 of VMS. The grape vine says that version will fix the problem with bad memory pages. 3. DO NOT copy a new version of VMB.EXE to the PRO console when upgrading VMS, as long as the PRO console is at rev level 4.0. The VMB.EXE file on a V4 console is for Version 4.6 of VMS and will work on VMS versions less than 4.6!!! If your console is NOT at version 4.0, call your LFSO and get them to upgrade it!!! This means that the VMB.EXE file on the PRO will support the Volume Shadowing if the product is installed. 4. Do NOT use the Sysgen command 'CONNECT CONSOLE' to have the disk in the PRO made available to users under VMS. This was typically done on 11/7XX series and the console floppy was then mounted foreign. I have been told that there is a problem with doing the same thing on 85/87/87 series. The net result is that a time bomb starts ticking and the system will crash at various times for no apparent reason. The problem is rumored to be fixed in VMS 4.6. 5. Do not be confused if the system crashes with a memory fault message on the console and when you exam the crash dump the crash message is 'Invalid RUL... (Journeling)'. The system is not doing journeling behind your back, its a bug. Believe the console message and look towards the memory subsystem, and in particular the MCL card. The problem is rumored to be fixed in 4.6 of VMS. 6. If you have a TA81 on a HSC tape requester card and have version 3.00 running on the HSC beware when using the HSC BACKUP program. The problem is a 'Positional Re-Try Failure' message on the HSC that will only happen at the beginning of the tape when its writing the tape labels. There is a patch to V3.0 of the HSC software to fix the problem, so talk to your LFSO for installing the patch. I do not know if the problem exists for the TA78 drives connected to the HSC as well. 7. I know of one person that mounted the PRO console disk under VMS and made a backup of the contents to tape. He said it appeared to work without any problems. He also said he could not risk loading it back down to see if it REALLY worked. Maybe someone else on the network has done something along these lines.?? 8. There a relatively small hole in the bottom of the CPU cabinet for air intake to cool the boards. We had to move floor tiles and the system in order to get the best flow of air into the cabinet. Hope the information above is of help and if new items come to mind or occur, I shall pass the results along. Considering everything, its still fun to come to work and use the new systems. Have fun with yours. Paul D. Clayton - Systems Manager TSO Financial - Horsham, Pa. USA Address - CLAYTON%XRT@CIS.UPENN.EDU