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Personal Decstation 5000/25 not powering up

T

tkc8800

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2014
Messages
145
Location
Adelaide, South Australia
I recently picked up a Personal Decstation 5000/25 for free, it came with keyboard and mouse and two 20" color monitors, unfortunately the owner couldn't find the video cables, but luckily he lives close to me and has vowed to give me a call when he finds them. The machine seems well populated it has two hard drives installed, the daughter board option and an optional video card, it also has the 2.88mb floppy.

I don't know a whole lot about these machines so I started doing some research and I discovered that if the keyboard is not connected you can access the machine through the serial port using a terminal. So I connected my VT100 to the serial port using a null modem cable, after around 15 seconds sure enough I was able to access console mode. It ran through a few diagnostics and displayed some messages and then came up with the command line. I was able to issue the boot command and the hard drive came to life. It seemed to be going well but then after a couple of power cycles the machine stopped powering up. I removed the power supply and took off the casing but there was no visible signs of anything blown. The power supply has two fuses which are still both in tact.

I'll spend some more time with it tonight, but I was just fishing for ideas on things I could check. I suspect it is the power supply, does anyone know of common issues with these power supplies?

Also, I'll probably get rid of the monitors, as much as I'd like to keep one, I just don't have the space so I'd like to connect it to a vga monitor or flat panel. Does anyone know of a good method to connect the 3w3 output to a vga monitor or flat panel?
 
Not sure about the power supplies, but 13W3-to-VGA adapters used to be pretty common, at least for the version used on the Sun cgsix video. It shouldn't be too hard to find one that's DECstation-compatible, and just about any monitor should be able to cope with the scan rate (though I know my ASUS monitor is allergic to refresh rates over 70 Hz at times).
 
lee4hmz said:
Not sure about the power supplies, but 13W3-to-VGA adapters used to be pretty common, at least for the version used on the Sun cgsix video. It shouldn't be too hard to find one that's DECstation-compatible, and just about any monitor should be able to cope with the scan rate (though I know my ASUS monitor is allergic to refresh rates over 70 Hz at times).
Click to expand...

I've done several searches and haven't been able to find any, I would have thought they'd still be available.
 
After spending some more time with the Decstation I'm happy to say it's now working again. The power supply is fine. After doing some web searches on similar problems I read that if the power supply doesn't have enough demand on it, it won't power up. That was the case, the main hard drive must have failed shortly after I powered it up initially and that was stopping the machine powering up. I disconnected the faulty drive and swapped it with the second drive, initially it wouldn't work, but then I set jumpers on the second drive to set the SCSI id appropriately and it now boots. By a stroke of luck both drives in the machine have Ultrix installed, they were even sticky labeled with "copy 1", "copy 2".

Also, the previous owner found the video cables, so I now have those. One is a 3w3 to BNC and the other is a VGA to BNC. So what I'm hoping to do is connect the BNC ends together with some adapters and I should be able to connect it to a VGA monitor.

Now the machine starts to the command prompt and I can type the boot command and it loads X Windows to a login prompt. I can't get any further because I don't have the password, so next step will be looking at re-installing the system. If anyone has any info on that I would appreciate it.

** P.S - there was another response to this thread with some good info but it seems to have disappeared??

Here's some pics of the machine in action:

http://tkc8800.com/Images/Decstation_5000-25/personal_decstation_5000-25.JPG

http://tkc8800.com/Images/Decstation_5000-25/personal_decstation_5000-25_1.JPG

http://tkc8800.com/Images/Decstation_5000-25/dec_20inch_monitor.jpg

http://tkc8800.com/Images/Decstation_5000-25/vga_to_bnc.jpg
 
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You should not plan to reinstall Ultrix as a first option. Better to connect the working disk to the SCSI bus to another unix machine - altering the SCSI ID to suit, mount it with the appropriate file system options and copy over the /etc/passwd file. Download "John the Ripper" to your PC and put both in the same folder. In minutes you will have the password.

As an easier option, it's possible also that there is a guest account on the DEC that you can access without a password and use to copy the passwd file to floppy, or FTP it out. Also, have you tried some obvious password choices like "root" or "dec" ?

These are general unix techniques, perhaps others can comment. I should also mention that running another OS on this machine such as NetBSD is not a good idea as it would be very slow.
 
paul said:
You should not plan to reinstall Ultrix as a first option. Better to connect the working disk to the SCSI bus to another unix machine - altering the SCSI ID to suit, mount it with the appropriate file system options and copy over the /etc/passwd file. Download "John the Ripper" to your PC and put both in the same folder. In minutes you will have the password.

As an easier option, it's possible also that there is a guest account on the DEC that you can access without a password and use to copy the passwd file to floppy, or FTP it out. Also, have you tried some obvious password choices like "root" or "dec" ?

These are general unix techniques, perhaps others can comment. I should also mention that running another OS on this machine such as NetBSD is not a good idea as it would be very slow.
Click to expand...

Agree, I can't say I've found any straight forward info on re-installing Ultrix, so it would be best to stick with the working installation. I don't have another Unix machine handy unfortunately, the only scsci capable machines I have are Macs. I've heard about John the ripper and it sounds like a good option. I did try to log in as root with some obvious passwords but no luck. I didn't try the guest account so thanks, I will try that. The guy that donated the machine to me is the original user, I will contact him to see if he possibly remembers what the login details are, it's a long shot but worth a try.

is there a way that files can be accessed from console mode? Or is there a way that the boot of the graphical environment can be interupted to go to command line mode?
 
I dont know decstations and it is years since I have run ultrix.

Is there any way to feed in parameters to the boot process?
Often the flag "-s" or the word "single" added after the boot strings gets to a "#" prompt.
Then passwd root <return> will change the password.
e.g
ra(0,0,0)/vmunix -s
or
ra(0,0,0)/vmunix single
-----
Also, many early versions of ultrix and unix had the ": preserve" bug in vi.
This could be used run setuid programs as root and could thus take over the system.
To achieve that you need
a a mortal login
b a buggy : preserve in vi
-----
 
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> Is there any way to feed in parameters to the boot process?

Yes, I've just been reading about this. The machine initially boots to the monitor prompt ">>", from there you issue the boot command it boots into multi-user mode, but if you modify the boot command you can boot to single user mode, command would be similar to this:

>> boot 3/rz1/vmunix

I could then try to copy the passwd file to a floppy. Not sure if I'll be able to read the floppy in another system though. I'll give it a try tonight.
 
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Try
>> boot 3/rz1/vmunix -s
OR
>> boot 3/rzl/vmunix single
IF you get to a "#" prompt you have won. There is absolutely no need to copy the passwd file (the password is NOT there anyway I suspect but in /etc/shadow) to a floppy to gain access.
At the "#" prompt you have access and are root.

Once you get to "#" just do
passwd root <return>
and enter the new password at the prompt(s).
Then type
sync<return>
sync<return>
probably
^D (control D) to come up in multi-user.

You might be able to make a copy of /etc/shadow if you really want to break the password later.

In single-user mode the synchronisation daemon does not run, so any changes to the filestore - like copies, or password changes are best written to the disk by YOU typing "sync".
 
iainmaoileoin said:
Try
>> boot 3/rz1/vmunix -s
OR
>> boot 3/rzl/vmunix single
IF you get to a "#" prompt you have won. There is absolutely no need to copy the passwd file (the password is NOT there anyway I suspect but in /etc/shadow) to a floppy to gain access.
At the "#" prompt you have access and are root.

Once you get to "#" just do
passwd root <return>
and enter the new password at the prompt(s).
Then type
sync<return>
sync<return>
probably
^D (control D) to come up in multi-user.

You might be able to make a copy of /etc/shadow if you really want to break the password later.

In single-user mode the synchronisation daemon does not run, so any changes to the filestore - like copies, or password changes are best written to the disk by YOU typing "sync".
Click to expand...

Success I'm glad to say!

I was able to get into single user mode with:

>>boot 3/rz0/vmunix -s

For some reason, when I first tried to execute: passwd root, it said "passwd: cannot execute". Not sure what I did but I changed directories to /etc and it eventually worked. I was able to reset the root password and I now have access.

ultrix_desktop.jpg

Next challenge will be to get it working on a modern monitor, these DEC monitors are huge. I've ordered 3 BNC joiners and I hope it will be as easy as connecting the two video cables together and then into a VGA monitor. I also want to try and get it on the network as I have all the required hardware.
 
I guess your rubout character is not what you expect.

So you type passs<backspace>wd
LOOKS like passwd to you and I but not to the shell - that is why it says "not found".
I guess you eventually typed it in without a rubout/delete character and it worked?

Is your typing like mine, 2 characters forward and then 1 backwards!
try "stty -a" at a "#" prompt and see what erase is set to - I suspect it is rubout (delete) and not backspace (^h).

try typing in "stty erase <control-v><your-preferred-rubout-key><return>"

<control-v> will only appear on screen as an "^". Dont worry - that is correct.
 
iainmaoileoin said:
I guess your rubout character is not what you expect.

So you type passs<backspace>wd
LOOKS like passwd to you and I but not to the shell - that is why it says "not found".
I guess you eventually typed it in without a rubout/delete character and it worked?

Is your typing like mine, 2 characters forward and then 1 backwards!
try "stty -a" at a "#" prompt and see what erase is set to - I suspect it is rubout (delete) and not backspace (^h).

try typing in "stty erase <control-v><your-preferred-rubout-key><return>"

<control-v> will only appear on screen as an "^". Dont worry - that is correct.
Click to expand...

No, it definitely wasn't a typing problem. Just to confirm I tried it again today and I still get: "passwd: cannot execute", when I type: passwd root. I suspect it's a permission problem on the /etc/passwd file. Not sure how I got it to work now, it's frustrating.

In single user mode, one odd thing is that the passwd executable in the /bin directory is a link to /usr/bin/passwd. But when I go into /usr/bin there are no files listed. If I log into XWindows in multi-user mode I can see the files in /usr/bin. I can't really work out what's going on there.
 
Do you see different file systems mounted in single user mode vs. multi user mode? What is the output of mount in each case?

If you try mount -a while in single user mode does that help?
 
gslick said:
Do you see different file systems mounted in single user mode vs. multi user mode? What is the output of mount in each case?

If you try mount -a while in single user mode does that help?
Click to expand...

Yes, this was the problem, in single user mode the /usr/bin is not mounted. The passwd executable exists in /usr/bin. You need to mount it so that passwd will work:

# mount /usr
# passwd root
...

I must have accidentally done this the first time when I got passwd to work. Good to know.
 
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Hang on in there - you are close

OK, that could be making sense. /usr/bin could be a mounted drive. When you come up in single user mode, only the root disk is mounted. So you cant execute the program that is on an unmounted drive. It is a strange system that does not have passwd on the root disk!

This is a simple thing to fix - if I knew your config - but I dont, so I am working on generic plans here. It would actuall y be easier to do a telephone-tech-support call with you. Is that possible?
-----

Anyway
can you get into single user mode and
cd /
find . -name "passwd" -a -print
mount
df
and send me the output?
-------
You could try to bring the other disk/partition online with
mount -o ro /usr/bin #(may be wrong flags for ultrix) failing that
mount -r /usr/bin #failing that
mount -o rdonly /usr/bin

1 of the above three commands MIGHT mount up /usr/bin
then the passwd command will work
passwd root <return>

REMEMBER TO USE
sync
after the password is changed

Once you have changed the root passwd unmount the disk
umount /usr/bin
sync
do that before going to multi-user mode.

----
If you are up in single user mode, another option is is edit the file where the encrypted password is held the and
* remove the password - so you can login when you bring up X and change it. BUT some versions of unix wont allow a login with a blank password.
* replace it with a known encrypted password string - lets call this plan Z for now.
can you do an
ls -la /etc/
and send me the output pls
 
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iainmaoileoin said:
Hang on in there - you are close

OK, that could be making sense. /usr/bin could be a mounted drive. When you come up in single user mode, only the root disk is mounted. So you cant execute the program that is on an unmounted drive. It is a strange system that does not have passwd on the root disk!

This is a simple thing to fix - if I knew your config - but I dont, so I am working on generic plans here. It would actuall y be easier to do a telephone-tech-support call with you. Is that possible?
-----
Click to expand...

No problems, I fixed it, in single user mode I needed to type: "mount /usr", that brought all the directories under /usr online. Then passwd works fine. Like you say strange that passwd was under that folder but that's the way it must have been set up.
 
It is indeed a bit strange.
Sounds like it was set-up by somebody who never had to much in single-user mode.
At least you are up and running.
However - you may hit troubles later if fsck (et al) are not on the root partition.
If the root partition gets corrupt, the process of mounting /usr could make it worse, or could fail totally.
I would be tempted to cp /usr/bin (and perhaps /usr/sbin) to /safe/something so that in the case of a dire emergency
you could gain access to the "important" executables without having to mount a disk.

Sorry for insulting your typing ;-)
 
Here's one lucky bastard :D
Congrats on your find, that's a neat machine. I'd love to have one of them aswell...
If you are in trouble you can fid both Ultrix and OSF-1 images here on WinWorld.
https://winworldpc.com/product/ultrix https://winworldpc.com/product/dec-osf-1/1x
I guess you can also run NetBSD/pmax and Debian into that neat box!
If you want to poke around with Ultrix without risking to damage the system you can try out GXEmul, it should be a fairly solid emulator by now.
 
iainmaoileoin said:
It is indeed a bit strange.
Sounds like it was set-up by somebody who never had to much in single-user mode.
At least you are up and running.
However - you may hit troubles later if fsck (et al) are not on the root partition.
If the root partition gets corrupt, the process of mounting /usr could make it worse, or could fail totally.
I would be tempted to cp /usr/bin (and perhaps /usr/sbin) to /safe/something so that in the case of a dire emergency
you could gain access to the "important" executables without having to mount a disk.

Sorry for insulting your typing ;-)
Click to expand...

No problem, thanks for your help. Without the responses above it would have taken me a lot longer to work things out. It's been 20 years since I used Unix machines, last time was at University in the mid 90's. I'm starting to recall many of the differences in how Unix works compared to Windows machines.
 
Jack. said:
Here's one lucky bastard :D
Congrats on your find, that's a neat machine. I'd love to have one of them aswell...
If you are in trouble you can fid both Ultrix and OSF-1 images here on WinWorld.
https://winworldpc.com/product/ultrix https://winworldpc.com/product/dec-osf-1/1x
I guess you can also run NetBSD/pmax and Debian into that neat box!
If you want to poke around with Ultrix without risking to damage the system you can try out GXEmul, it should be a fairly solid emulator by now.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links. I also found an Ultrix 4.5 CD image here:

http://musall.de/mirrors/ultrix/ultrix_os/risc/

Best to get some copies of this system in circulation as it was very hard to find.
 
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