Topic: digital (HP) alpha 4000 help

[jivedave]

Are there any forumites or acquaintances thereof who know how to fault diagnose, system manage a 10 y.o. digital alphaserver 4000?
I used to make a decent living programming using the VMS op. system (it may have eunuchs loaded) on these type of m/c s and have just bought one locally and v. cheaply from ebay (stuffing into the back of the mondeo probably wasn't a good idea) for the purpose of maybe giving myself the chance to get back into that line of work. HP who now own DEC have decided to continue supporting OpenVMS due to legacy software requirements and look to be more friendly towards hobbyists.

(i think DEC wouldn't have been interested and priced themselves out of the market, despite supplying a robust product)

[philsmove]

try geeks corner in another place

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/geeks-corner/

[jivedave]

..thanks for the info Phil. i may be able to get some help locally though i've found a US site which may be able to help.

[jivedave]

Anyhow thought i'd give an update on slight progress and ask a couple of questions of a general nature.

Was given a earlier model (2100) by a guy in Swindon (which had decided not to work - but have bought an anti-static band to be able to check the board seatings) but it came with an OpenVMS OS CD. Put it in the 4000 and found 'boot block...' but then fell over as the Alpha Bios was at too early a version no. which brings me to my 1st qu.

If i download the bios software from HP and create a a CD to load into the Alpha - how safe an operation will this be. ie: does the download and burn have CRCs (cyclic redundancy checks) performed - remember them , vaguely from checking satellite telemetry frames?

On a more general note - can anyone help with C++ questions - playing with old borland installation on PC - but having probelms 'opening' write files. (most of my programming life was Fortran)

RAID (redundant array of independent disks) looks like it need some 'configuring' - looks like someone had tried to load windows NT (read somewhere that i can cause problems.)

...somehow i've got the idea that if i can get back up to speed (and learn new stuff) i can take advantage of the work (lucrative maybe) availed by the remaining large pool of VMS based businesses.

sorry to enthuse but having approx 20+ years working with it, it's hard to turn one's back on it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS

some CRC background :
http://www.softwarepatch.com/tips/cyclic-redundancy.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check

http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/crc.html

[jivedave]

try geeks corner in another place
...

Update from rigger booted geek here - well humping 75->105 kgs of awkward, steel chassied, obsolete computer up my steps could have been a risk to my dancing toes (certainly revived some previous aches)

Set up to log into the HP forum and have got masses of online documentation and some help (suspect much more user friendly than 'DEC') to access the firmware download, I needed - slightly worrying as i had to abort my original attempt. Anyhow managed to get to the BIOS updated in stages - wish i could reprogramme somebody's firmware. 

Started to boot, then hit the next snag of needing to do some sort of disk config.g.

Came across an tenuous dance connection earlier....
...here's a financial page which has some perhaps, interesting TANGO discussion : http://www.dailyreckoning.com/

...the current page, of course changes regularly - here's the relavent Tango article : http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/argentina-comes-to-an-end/2007/10/29/ - i'll tidy it up in a day or two.

... re the impending financial doom (the 'daily reckoning' is always negative), I wonder if we're headed for the 70's senario: 'stagflation' rather than the US style 'correction'. Good job inflation is only 2%ish (- the old RPI is over 4%, my sol.n is to omit anything that goes up in price ) as i've noticed several basics getting more expensive. How the absurd increase in the predicted pop. of England can be compatible with cutting CO2 emissions is beyond me - it just seems that approximately the same cake will be divided more ways.

read a witty quote from Oscar Wilde ? , recently - 'if all the economists in the world were laid end-to-end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion'

ps - for finance people, wire is not extruded (from article) but drawn (Mech Eng taught me something). It's not something to worry about but when i worked for Corus, getting the tyre chord wire within a tight spec. was a big concern - have to think about something when i always wake up early with my more menial job. Hope I don't feel too kaput at Clifton Leroc tonight as i want to remember some of Sat's goodies 

[John Gimber: Webmaster]

You're lucky you managed to restart a bios update - that's usually a majorly critical failure unless you had a dual bios setup - unlikely from that era (but not impossible).

The big question is... does it play Tetris?

John.

[jivedave]

Yes, it has got what i guess is called dual BIOS as AlphaBIOS is used if running NT (this being relatively up to date and the setting of the boot flags, suggest the m/c was running NT) or SRM console in 'flash ROM' (Power up Diag.s , Oper. Interface, O.S. bootstrap and restart) I suppose alphabios does much the same but 'prepares' for NT.

The complete BIOS upgrade is in 3 separate parts, those mentioned, plus I/O option BIOS - i loaded that from floppy but am not sure if it loaded successfully (can be done later, i believe)

The SRM part which hung left me wondering if it had some female dimension because it just sat there, not communicating. Was it something i said? , did i press wrong button?

Anyhow must get to grips with the disk setup (i recall reading somewhere that having had NT loaded can cause problems and i think i need something called RCU - RAID config utility)

All this would have been transparent before - i just logged on and coded - sorry, engineered software. 

I hope the economic tide might be changing back to something more favourable for manufacturing type activities - a guy living opposite me has some involvement in PLC (programmable logic controllers) and is getting me some bumpf which might prompt some ideas of how to move forward job wise. My last few years of VMS usage would be classed as SCADA (system control and data acquisition?) i think.

I think it 'decided' early not to upgrade and so the risk of major fowl-up wasn't too great, perhaps. Loos like i'll need to ask the kids about 'Tetris' 

[John Gimber: Webmaster]

Hi Jivedave,

I saw this and thought of you...

Remembering the CDC 6600

John.

[jivedave]

...yeah ... great stuff!

I was trying to find out a few weeks ago, what happened to seymour cray of  CDC - CRAY supercomputers - he crashed his JEEP cherokee - think it was which was more serious than crashing his computer and he passed away shortly afterwards. Ironically the Jeep had been partly designed using a CRAY - think that's approx. correct. I recall seeing him pictured dressed in a sort of lumberjack's shirt - no slick suit and tie, great guy. I'll look at the link later.

Been 'playing' with my alpha and thought oh no not something else f*d up. Thought the bios stuff had come back to bite me (but got round with a fresh download and reinstall) as i had to go into the other alphabios console mode to confront the disk config problem related to RAID and Infoserver - just what is that?

I remember hot Summer of '76 (that's 19) and going into Rolls's computer suite for a CDC? Cyber '76, as the room was air conditioned.

 - that's 'fouled-up' , by the way. what else could it possibly be?

[jivedave]

...ok, i don't like to rush things but i seem to have made some progress with my DEC (digital equipment corp.) box and having failed to take Karen's advice found one of my 3 spare PC monitors (a CTX with a slightly diff. pin config) which actually displays a hazy HP logo

Still i'm learning; I just used to log in and programme at most places. (when i started using VAXes (DEC minis) at a large Co. - DEC engineers looked-after the kit and got rather upset when someone placed their cuppa on one of the machines)

THE MAIN POINT OF THIS POST IS TO REQUEST PEOPLE TO EXAMINE THEIR CONSCIENCES AND SO TO SEARCH FOR ANY PC MONITORS (CGA, ETC. AS OPPOSED TO VGA) WITH 9 PIN CONNECTORS WHICH CONTRARY TO KM's HORDING  REGULATIONS YOU SHOULD BE THROWING OUT - OR LETTING ME COLLECT.

ADDITIONALLY, i'm interested in any RS 232 type 9 pin connectors M or F and possible converters from 9 pin to 15 pin D connectors/cables. I'd like 9 pin monitor as there is a separate console port on the machine which logs more infromation which will help me work out where i'm going wrong.

I'm not sure if any of this acquired knowledge will be any use to me (like TCP/IP  layers, Null modem cable, ethernet) but i've got vague ideas about being able connect to my PC and to 'do things' with software as i once did with image processing - it was quite interesting reading differently (un)formatted data and doing bit manipulation for image enhancement.

here's a piece showing how computers and beverages don't mix:
(not very subtle but the kids were amused)



- i had decks  of punched cards then

[Karen Mary]

..... WHICH CONTRARY TO KM's HORDING  REGULATIONS YOU SHOULD BE THROWING OUT - OR LETTING ME COLLECT.

Not throw out Dave -  recycle  - but preferably not in India or China.

I think you will have extreme difficulty in finding your bits - does anyone really hoard stuff like that for over 25 years? 

Liked the clip form Some mother's do 'ave 'em - I used to watch that when small and always so wanted things to go right for Frank just once in a while!

[jivedave]

Maplins actually 'do' some of the connectors (eg: 9 to 15 pin though i'm trying to keep my expenditure right down) but as a general point computing in a large commercial environment is not like small business or home. Hardware and software are just a means to an end and as such substantial investment and risk are not contemplated without a favourable benefit to cost ratio. Not, if they've got any sense. (so a lot of older technology survives - as it's proven to work, continuously)

I did a lot of programming via a software house (the hire and fire situation, without the pay ) for a large org.n - decided to change a perfectly good sim. system written in fortran for one in ADA (me out the door, in with the whizz kids)

I've found something i worked on:


- '96 to '01 and can vaguely remember some of the screen
messages

changing subjects slightly - enjoyed clifton monday and was flattered to think that one of our leading ladies thought i was worth kicking, in a jocular way of course   - i suppose any attention is better than none   perhaps a dance next time, i'll try to save a few joules - here's a track that came to mind (danceable - imho) :

....
I think you will have extreme difficulty in finding your bits - does anyone really hoard stuff like that for over 25 years?  
....

10/10/09 removed some maybe sensitive stuff. Not doing much with the computers at the moment but trying to find some interesting project relating to physics, perhaps that might suit the 4100 particularly. It's a bit like not wanting to take the car out unless i've somewhere i want to go, especially.

[jivedave]

Just an update on the old computer job – owing to lack of funds and energy but lots of aches for dancing, I’ve been making a bit of an effort with the alphas (was given another one in the autumn, together lots of goodies, serial monitors, ethernet cable, hub..)

I managed install quite a lot of software, TCPIP using autonegotiate for the NIC link, FTP, Fortran compiler (wrote my first prog in 5 years to decipher a  file from the abomination called windows - a unix user's description  ) and have been playing at various system management activities. I set up a low privilege account for the proxy login ** ( a good security move but not as easy as I thought – one always had someone to do that sort of thing for one  ) and have just transported Thelma in MP3 form to my enterprise machine (I think that means, in effect,  it’s not a nanny state machine – so one has to tell it exactly, using the right words, what one wants – or it won’t cooperate – there had to be a XX chromosome dimension ) and back again.


** I'm quite interested in the security aspects of VMS - since I want to access the www - as one of it's selling points and I believe any 'wicked wicket gates' generally rely on hackers having an account


I'd like to be able to allow the machines to run continuously, as I don't think repeatedly powering them up and down is a good practice. Prolonged stability and availability is one of these systems 'selling points'

and here are the machines less their covers - beauty is only skin deep.