Booting off UC17 SCSI Adapter

[davepl1968]

Greetings! I've secured a UC17 unibus SCSI controller, and was thinking I'd be able to mount an image of RT-11 from the QBone setup (or PiDP-11 kit) on the SCSI emualtor's SD card, and that'd it will boot!

There's a lot of assumptions in there - if anyone has ever done it, or has any info on booting off SCSI, I could use some pointers! All I know is that I'll have to configure the UC17 as an MSCP controller, and hopefully it "just shows up" at a common CSR!

Cheers,
Dave

 

[gslick]

You could start by reading the UC17 manual. That might answer all of your questions.

 

[AK6DN]

Greetings! I've secured a UC17 unibus SCSI controller, and was thinking I'd be able to mount an image of RT-11 from the QBone setup (or PiDP-11 kit) on the SCSI emualtor's SD card, and that'd it will boot!

There's a lot of assumptions in there - if anyone has ever done it, or has any info on booting off SCSI, I could use some pointers! All I know is that I'll have to configure the UC17 as an MSCP controller, and hopefully it "just shows up" at a common CSR!

Cheers,
Dave

I have a UC18 on my 11/44 and a UC17 on my 11/34 and they both boot and run XXDP, RT11, and 2.11BSD (on the 11/44) just fine.
I have used both a box full of 2.1GB Seagate SCSI disks and a DEC (Toshiba) SCSI CDROM, and later moved to SCSI2SD emulator and now ZuluSCSI RP2040.
The UC17/18 does MSCP prototcol and shows up at the standard UDA50 address by default.
You will want to run the configurator program in the EEPROM on the UC17/18 to detect and setup your disks for the card. Manual shows how. It is on Bitsaver's.
After that, it boots just fine as 'DUn' on the 11/34 M9312 boot prom or on the 11/44 as 'b DUn' etc.

 

[davepl1968]

You could start by reading the UC17 manual. That might answer all of your questions.

Always glad that there are whip-smart individuals such as yourself eager to help the new folks. Read the manual... that's good. Had not thought of that.

Now if you assume that I had already read the manual, you could have contributed something like "The boot option for the MSCP controller with a 9301 boot prom is DU". Try that next time, see if a warm feeling of being helpful washes over you.

Until then, of course, keep chiming in with these helpful nuggets!

 

[davepl1968]

I have a UC18 on my 11/44 and a UC17 on my 11/34 and they both boot and run XXDP, RT11, and 2.11BSD (on the 11/44) just fine.
I have used both a box full of 2.1GB Seagate SCSI disks and a DEC (Toshiba) SCSI CDROM, and later moved to SCSI2SD emulator and now ZuluSCSI RP2040.
The UC17/18 does MSCP prototcol and shows up at the standard UDA50 address by default.
You will want to run the configurator program in the EEPROM on the UC17/18 to detect and setup your disks for the card. Manual shows how. It is on Bitsaver's.
After that, it boots just fine as 'DUn' on the 11/34 M9312 boot prom or on the 11/44 as 'b DUn' etc.

Thanks! I've been unable to find anything on the DU boot option... I believe the 11/34 uses the M9301-YF, and here's the table. So I'm wondering if DU is available but not listed, or if I could have an older PROM set that doesn't have DU support yet?

If I could boot off a UDA50, I'd also be done (as you note, the emulex can appear like one), that'd work too... any special ROM considerations on your 11/34 or does it just work?

Thanks!
Dave

 

[Al Kossow]

every boot device required its own prom. Don has collected all of them.

M9312 PROM Files

ak6dn.github.io

you will need to program a part if your board doesn't have it

 

[gslick]

There's a lot of assumptions in there - if anyone has ever done it, or has any info on booting off SCSI, I could use some pointers! All I know is that I'll have to configure the UC17 as an MSCP controller, and hopefully it "just shows up" at a common CSR!

There is no need to hope that it "just shows up" at a common CSR address. Just set the host adapter bus address switches for the standard first address of 177721500 for an MSCP controller if the UC17 is the only MSCP controller in the system.





If your question was simply how do you boot from a MSCP controller, that depends on the CPU, which wasn't specified in the original post. On an 11/84 or 11/94 the MSCP DU bootstrap is built into the standard CPU firmware. If you are asking specifically about an 11/34, then you need the MSCP boot PROM as mentioned in previous replies. The signature in Don's reply includes a link to his M9312 boot PROM collection.

 

[AK6DN]

Thanks! I've been unable to find anything on the DU boot option... I believe the 11/34 uses the M9301-YF, and here's the table. So I'm wondering if DU is available but not listed, or if I could have an older PROM set that doesn't have DU support yet?

If I could boot off a UDA50, I'd also be done (as you note, the emulex can appear like one), that'd work too... any special ROM considerations on your 11/34 or does it just work?

Thanks!
Dave

View attachment 1294208

I don't think the M9301 supported the DU style MSCP controllers, it was before their time. The M9312 with the various boot option proms (as Al noted above) was the standard for using with MSCP DU interfaces.
I'm not sure if there is an update to the boot PROM on the M9301 that supports the DU series MSCP controllers.

If you don't have an M9312 card it it going to be a bit more difficult to get it booted, you would need to load a toggle in boot for MSCP/DU from the console, or possibly put your UC17 in 'autoboot' mode
so it will boot automatically at power up or init.

 

[MattisLind]

Thanks! I've been unable to find anything on the DU boot option... I believe the 11/34 uses the M9301-YF, and here's the table. So I'm wondering if DU is available but not listed, or if I could have an older PROM set that doesn't have DU support yet

The M9301 is to old to support DU. All bootstraps is sort of integrated in the console emulator unlike M9312 where each bootstrap is a separate ROM. In that way you can install up to four bootstraps of your own choice.

The other options is to toggle in the bootstrap or let PDP11GUI do it for you. I also only had the M9301 in a 11/04 that I worked with. This how I solved it:

http://www.datormuseum.se/computers/digital-equipment-corporation/pdp-11-04---s-n-ag03092.html

Bootstrap file to load using PDP11GUI:
http://storage.datormuseum.se/u/96935524/Datormusuem/DU-BOOT.bin

 

[AK6DN]

every boot device required its own prom. Don has collected all of them.

M9312 PROM Files

ak6dn.github.io

you will need to program a part if your board doesn't have it

All correct. My site has the source/program images for all the standard known M9312 boot PROMs (which also work in an 11/44).
I also have some of the more common preprogrammed boot proms and blank parts and a programmer so I can program up any prom you want (part cost + shipping).
DM me offline if interested.

 

[gslick]

Greetings! I've secured a UC17 unibus SCSI controller, and was thinking I'd be able to mount an image of RT-11 from the QBone setup (or PiDP-11 kit) on the SCSI emualtor's SD card, and that'd it will boot!

If the goal is to get RT-11 booting from a SCSI SD adapter attached to the UC17 controller, this thread might have some useful information. The thread was written for using a UC07 in an 11/83 with RT-11 on a SCSI2SD, but the UC07 and UC17 Disk Firmware-Resident Diagnostic configuration should be very similar.

https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?t...alling-rt11-on-a-scsi2sd-card-pdp11-83.46326/

 

[davepl1968]

Thanks all... from what I've digested, I need the M9312 23-767A9 boot PROM. But I'm not yet clear if that means I need that PROM in my 9301-YF or if I should installed a M9312 with that PROM in my 11/34 INSTEAD of the 9301-YF. Can anyone clarify?

If anyone has such a 9312 or the ROM, please let me know. I've got the LST file, but no mechanism with which to burn one of those, nor any blanks!

_Dave

 

[AK6DN]

Thanks all... from what I've digested, I need the M9312 23-767A9 boot PROM. But I'm not yet clear if that means I need that PROM in my 9301-YF or if I should installed a M9312 with that PROM in my 11/34 INSTEAD of the 9301-YF. Can anyone clarify?

If anyone has such a 9312 or the ROM, please let me know. I've got the LST file, but no mechanism with which to burn one of those, nor any blanks!

You need the M9312 card that the PROM goes in to use that boot PROM in an 11/34. In won't work in an M9301.

So unless/until you get an M9312 that PROM won't do you any good.

Probably using PDP11GUI to download the DU boot thru the console interface is the easiest solution in the short term.

 

[thunter0512]

You need the M9312 card that the PROM goes in to use that boot PROM in an 11/34. In won't work in an M9301.

So unless/until you get an M9312 that PROM won't do you any good.

Probably using PDP11GUI to download the DU boot thru the console interface is the easiest solution in the short term.

I am curious if the M9312 code could be adapted for the M9301?

 

[AK6DN]

I am curious if the M9312 code could be adapted for the M9301?

Probably. It is just plain PDP-11 code that sets up the card to load and run the boot code (ie, read block zero into memory and jump to it).
Might have to change it slightly to fit into how the M9301 selects a boot device, but certainly could be done.
Depending on free space in the M9301 PROM, might have to delete some other boot code.
The M9312 boot proms are written to be position independent code, so they can be located at any base address.

 

[NF6X]

This page discusses making an adapter to replace the four M9301 PROMs with a pair of 2732 EPROMs, with a DIP switch to select multiple banks. This might be a good approach for adapting an M9301 for booting from newer storage devices. If I was making something like that today, I'd probably (checks what 5V compatible parallel SMD memories <= 70ns are in stock at Digi-Key at the moment) make a board using something like a pair of 2864 EEPROMs. Maybe I'll do that when my 11/34A finally makes it back to my front burner?

http://chdickman.com/pdp11/Notes/boot_board.shtml