Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 09:04:37 -0500 (EST)
From: "Jason T. Miller" <jasomill@shaffstall.com>
To: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms@moe.2bsd.com>
cc: pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: Hello and thanks!
In-Reply-To: <200005260320.UAA27315@moe.2bsd.com>
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Well, I keep calling the hardware support folks, and it keeps ringing
busy. Of course, since I don't have call waiting or voice mail, that is to
be expected :) I've actually thought about trying to acquire an
MSCP<->SCSI card and using one of the SCSI drives I have lying around, but
the 19" rackmount stuff is too cool (unfortunately, my spares cabinet is
full of dirty laundry and ruined CD-R media at the moment), though I
suppose an RA92 would suffice (anybody got one? :) though my budget is
henceforth nonexistant -- $300 wouldn't break the bank, because they
wouldn't give it to me. Don't know about the RQDX3, either, but more
likely the KDA50 (which drives my RA81 -- the RQDX3 is for RXen, no more).

The '81 was up all last night, so I don't have error numbers yet; I'll try
to repeat the RX50 problem sometime this weekend. The only FS, I have, is
yours, though I've started reading through it. Though the SCSI spec is
thousands of pages long, it's pretty easy to program; I just finished some
raw-tape-read routines for Hewlett-Packard CS/80 tape drives, that was
even simpler. In both cases, however, I do have documentation
(exhaustive documentation in re: SCSI -- again, work related). I take it
from your reply that such docs aren't to be had for MSCP? At any price?

Jason T. Miller
jasomill@shaffstall.com

On Thu, 25 May 2000, Steven M. Schultz wrote:

> Hi -
> 
> > From: "Jason T. Miller" <jasomill@shaffstall.com>
> > After about a week of work (mainly due to a dying RA81 ... see below), I
> > have successfully installed 2.11BSD on my 11/83. First and foremost,
> > thanks to a) Steven M. Shultz for so carefully maintaining and updating
> > (!) CSRG's PDP-11 code to work with hardware such as my MSCP drives and
> > TMSCP TK50 and b) everyone involved in prodding SCO to release free
> 
> 	You're welcome!  I can't take all of the credit (or blame depending
> 	how you look at it) for the MSCP driver - that came about in 2.10
> 	just before I became heavily involved.   Changes/rewrites/whatever
> 	are my fault though ;)   The TMSCP driver for 2BSD is my doing (based
> 	on a *heavily* mauled version of the 4.3BSD one with some Ultrix
> 	influences).
> 
> > The only problems I've been having seem to be coming from disk controllers
> > without media. More specifically, I get a hard error, followed by an
> > endless loop of error indications if I try to access one of my RX50s (on
> > an RQDX3 controller), and the only recourse is a reset. Okay, so the
> 
> 	Hmmm, that's a new one to me.  I used to have RX50s but they were
> 	so d$&$*&^!d flakey that I put a standard "pc" 5.25" floppy on 
> 	instead (TEAC something or other).  I didn't do the hardware stuff,
> 	Terry Kennedy did that.  Details on jumper setting to use a 5.25"
> 	floppy in place of RX50s are floating around somewhere on the net
> 	but I don't have the reference handy.
> 
> 	Can't say I've had a problem with the floppy drive with no media.
> 	It spins and eventually spits out an error but nothing bad happens
> 	to the system.
> 
> 	Hmmmm, what rev level of 2.11BSD do you have installed?  The latest
> 	from the PUPS archive (or at least fairly recent)?   
> 
> > solution here is simple: don't do it. The bigger problem comes with my
> > flake-job of an RA81, which, FWIW, is the only fixed disk storage I have.
> > It has a strange habit: the "A" light goes off and the controller can no
> 
> 	Been there, seen that - on 11/44s with UDA50 controllers.  When that
> 	happened I picked up the phone and got the hardware support folks to
> 	get me a new RA81 ;)   After a while they got tired of maintaining
> 	old hardware and when the RA81 died the last time they just turned off
> 	the system and later sold it for scrap (instead of spending $300 for 
> 	a RA92 drive).  Boo hiss.
> 
> 	RA81s have been the worst drive I've seen for failures - it should
> 	be fairly cheap to get a RA92 (8" desktop enclosure if I recall 
> 	right) to replace the RA81.  Does the RQDX3 support the larger 
> 	drives though I wonder?
> 
> > the same loop-of-errors syndrome as an empty RX50. Anyone have any
> > pointers or sage advice? I figured I may try to modify the MSCP driver to
> > re-init the controller on a hard error, and try again. But the MSCP code
> > is fairly complicated, and I know nothing of the protocol. Anyone have any
> 
> 	You're not just whistling Dixie there - it's the most complex 
> 	convoluted protocol I've seen for handling disks (and tapes).  Well,
> 	SCSI these days might be just as complex - but there's a difference:
> 	I can get lots better specs and documentation for SCSI than I can for 
> 	MSCP.  If you've access to other systems (RSX, IAS, etc) sources you 
> 	can RTFS (Read The Fine Source) and try to puzzle out how MSCP works 
> 	what the errors are and what to do about them but that's a far
> 	cry from a complete, detailed, tabular, whatever document on how to
> 	write a MSCP driver.
> 
> > MSCP documentation which I could beg, borrow, or steal? I'd give the
> > specific error codes, but I haven't written any down yet and I'm at work.
> 
> 	I know I did do some work (mostly in the TMSCP part though) to improve
> 	error handling and not leave drives stranded and the like.   If you
> 	can jot down the error codes I can take a look at the driver and
> 	perhaps see what can be done to recover more gracefully.
> 
> 	Cheers!
> 
> 	Steven Schultz
> 	sms@moe.2bsd.com
>