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UC07 + SCSI2SD update

M

Matlock

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
172
Location
Canyon Lake, Texas USA
There have been a number of software updates to the SCSI2SD cards and some nice improvements to the hardware of the cards. The newest version that in a recent post (Sept. 24th) was mentioned as now being shipped from the U.S. with a price of $65. So I had to get a new one. The best thing is that it solves having to connect powder to the unit as it can draw what it needs from the SCSI bus. With the older units I had a separate supply giving it power (not a problem with BA23).

The new software is GUI based so it it easier to use and now the MicroSD card can be partitioned into 2-4 disk with different SCSI unit numbers. I've been using an Emulex UC07 on both the PDP-11/83 running RSX11M+ and the MINC-23 that I have been working on recently. To get the 11/23 to boot the DU I modified my BDV-11 with ROM images supplied by Malcolm which filled eight 2716B EPROMs (note program these 2716B chips with 12.5V not 21V which is used with the 2716) and everything was working great.

I have 256 KB of RAM and can boot either RT-11 V5.6 or RSX11M (not +) by changing the microSD card. Now I can start testing all the spares I have laying around. I check another 11/23 it's good, an 11/73 it's good, another 11/73 it's good, now I tried a different DLV-11J... I can talk to ODT but the UC07 won't boot... Hmm... I fire up F.R.D. on the UC07 and the UC07 seems good but it can't see the SCSI2SD... I try a different microSD.. FRD can't see the new card either (using the option 7) list drives command it just hangs. The LED on the SCSI2SD comes on and stays on but no drive. I switch back to the original DLV-11J, still doesn't work. I wonder if I fried something? I changed the settings in FRD all over the place trying to get it to see the drives but no good. I check the contents of the microSD card by using DD to load it on my iMac and boot Simh from the .dsk file image. No problem the microSD and its contents are good.

I try another SCSI2SD card and same result. Give up and sleep on it. It was working until I changed the DLV-11J, but that DLV-11 did work. I reseat all the cards, no dice, check the voltages, everything is good. Give up and sleep on it again, then talking through the symptoms with my son I realize, I haven't checked the cable. It was one I made my self so it could have a problem. After digging around in the cable parts bin, I find a factory SCSI cable that doesn't look like it has any unusual modifications and swap it out with the original. Works perfect!!!

I realized now that had I been a bit more systematic about diagnosing the problem, I could have figured it out faster.

Also having known working spares is invaluable. So I ordered another UC07 and when it came, just to see what would happen and swapped it out with the old one and did not configure it except to change one DIP switch setting and used one of the 11/73 CPUs that did not seem to use the new ROM on the BDV11. I did not fire up FRD to config anything on the UC07. It booted the RSX11M microSD straight up. Good to know that the factory FRD setting are fine for the SCSI2SD.

Anyway if you are having disk boot problems, in addition to making sure to LATFP "Look At The Front Panel" (as Ian pointed out a week ago), check the cable in the beginning of trouble shooting the problem, not last.

Mark
 
version

version

PG31 said:
Hi Mark, What version of SCSI2SD do you have please? I'm looking into getting one of these cards. I have an UC08.
Click to expand...

I am running 4 of these SCSI2SD boards; 2 x V4.2c and 2 x 5.0a. The inter-operate fine.

I think I have had the initial boards for a year or 18 months. [I also THINK I was told the "a" "c" letter was to do with the initial firmware. I have upgraded both versions to the latest firmware - for no reason but it is the latest!]

The boards work flawlessly on a combination of emulex UC01/07 (qbus and unibus boards) and also on the various old ("cheap") PC-scsi controller boards that I use to write images. The latter machine is for setup/formatting of the SD disks and for "dd'ing" images from simh. I have used RT11 (initial testing of hardware) and now using BSD2.11 on all the old '11s and BSD4.3 on my 1 microvax. All run fine on the combination.

The config of the "disk" is stored on the BOARD and not on the SD card. This means that to read an SD card you need to put it back into a board that has the same disk definition information. Not hard to do but documentation is critical to maintain. I "snopake"/"tipex" my SD cards and letter them so I can remember what format is on each later.

I use unix exclusively in my world. I had some issues with the initial formatting software under Linix. The linux s/w was set up for a 64 bit OS and I was only running a 32 bit. I grabbed the source, recompiled it and - hey-presto - everything worked. I have subsequently stuck a 64 bit centos on an old desktop and run the standard software to format and config the SD.

I have 1 card permenantly(sp) on the desktop and three cards scattered about the PDPs. All cards are set up with identical formatting of 4 x 2Gb disks. Then I can put smaller images on/in that area.

I did have some initial issues with 1 or 2 makes of SD card. I never really got to the bottom of it (I did, I have a chapter somewhere on it all. At the end of the day it is simple to see the issue before it is an issue. If you have the offer of purchasing with a known good brand then take it and dont waste your life. Note that price/speed of the SD is NOT the issues. Some real cheap SDs work fine and some real expensive ultra-10s dont. In the UK Samsung and SanDisk makes work fine. I just buy 8Gb Sandisk ultras now and have no troubles.

I hope that helps. Having 2 boards really makes it fast to move images around without lots of power-down, swap cables, power up etc etc.

I dont own shares in the company!
I do wish I could buy the RL controller "off the shelf" as my wirewrap skills are not what they used to be - just threading the tools takes me hours!

Questions?
 
PG31 said:
Hi Mark, What version of SCSI2SD do you have please? I'm looking into getting one of these cards. I have an UC08.
Click to expand...

I have five SCSI2SD cards. The first two are the first hardware version which was a green color. I got them in March 2014 and they are currently mounted in my PDP-11/83 in a BA23 box. One is configured to look like a RD54 (154 MB) and the other is configured to be a RA92 (~1.5 GB). It runs RSX11M+ V4.6 with DECnet and Johnny Billquist's TCP/IP.

The next pair is the next hardware generation, an orange board. It had two improvements over the first, it has pins to connect an external disk activity LED and it was the first to feature "hot swap" for the microSD cards. I was using them with the MINC-23 but will probably move them to the 11/83 to take advantage of the external LEDS once I fabricate a faceplate.

Then just a few weeks ago I bought one of the latest versions which is now available for $65 and it not not need external power and is about half the size of the original. I will be using that on the MINC-23. I've run RT-11 and RSX11M on it. I've updated all of the cards to software/firmware versions V4.3 or V4.4 Michael McMaster brings out new software every few months with new features.

I'd echo Ian's comments on microSD, get a good brand but the speed is not important. The speed I get on the PDP-11/83 for a PIP copy of a large file is around 275,000 Kwords per second or about 67 I/Os per second. This is comparable or slightly faster than disks like the RD54 or RA81. I have only used them with UC07s but hear from others that they have used CMD SCSI controllers.

It is a great way to get old software from bitsavers into RT-11 or other operating systems that otherwise would be quite complicated. By the on the MINC I am looking for a way to mount the activity LED and a socket for a SD card on one of the panel blanks that slide into the front. I'd like to 3D print a plastic replica panel to avoid cutting holes in one of the originals. Also I will be trying a cable/socket combo that has microSD to plug into the SCSI2SD then has a full size SD socket. The larger SD will more easily fit through the front panel for swapping "disks". The microSD always come with the adapters to fit standard SD and I have to use them to fit them into the iMac for Simh. I run Simh on Ubuntu under VMWARE on OSX to prepare disk images.

Mark

Mark
 
More SCSI2SD Praise

More SCSI2SD Praise

I've also had good luck with SCSI2SD cards using the UC07 in a 11/73 & MicroVAX II, the native SCSI interface on a MicroVAX 3100 and Adaptec 2940UW running Openstep Intel and Ubuntu. A TSX+ system with 32 DU simultaneous partitions (just part of a 4GB microSD) is something to behold.

Michael McMaster has been very responsive to feedback. I had problems with VMS 5.5-2 (notoriously picky about scsimode settings), but he took the time to work with me, update the firmware and now it works just fine. I've never had a problem with the cards.

My only challenge is sometimes my own tendency to get adventurous and change the configuration of several things at once. It pays to be patient and do only or two "enhancements" at time. I definitely spend more time logging changes and documenting my configuration and disk images than I ever did. Having spares certainly helps, if only sometimes to confirm that the problem is with the computer that lies between my ears.

These days I'm keeping multiple duplicate images on both spinning rust and microSD cards.


Jerry
 
I'm going to order one. I have a few RD** drives all working including an RD54. I plan to copy off the data from these to SD cards. The RD54 has RSX11m+ and the other two disks have XXDP on them. I'll probably have lots of questions how to perform this task after my SCSI2SD converter arrives;)
 
XXDP moved fro RD54 to SCSI

XXDP moved fro RD54 to SCSI

PG31 said:
I'm going to order one. I have a few RD** drives all working including an RD54. I plan to copy off the data from these to SD cards. The RD54 has RSX11m+ and the other two disks have XXDP on them. I'll probably have lots of questions how to perform this task after my SCSI2SD converter arrives;)
Click to expand...

I am trying to understand what you are saying about XXDP stuff. I have never tried what you are planning (but would like to)

If you copy XXDP from one disk type to another, how does XXDP know to use the disk driver for that system? Does XXDP "do a unix" and understand something about the boot string and then arrange to use that drive?

I have diags on RLs.

Are you telling me that I can stick those images on an SD card under SCSI2SD and boot straight into diags? I kindof assumed that the XXDP for e.g. RL02s knows it is using and RL02 disk driver and would not run off anything else.

On the other hand the impressive CLUNK as the heads grind over the rust takes me back to the early days of computing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At uni I worked with a guy who used fixed head disks (which ran in the open air) AKA a "drum".
He adjusted the head gap on the disk using a screw-thread and a 'scope. If you screwed in too far the oxide under that head peeled off.
All you did was unclip the lead from that head and move it to a free head (eh and put the missing data back!).

Once all spare heads were used up, you sent the drum away to be recoated.
That is real computing.
 
Hi Ian, I built the XXDP bootable disk using TU58 emulator. I have the details somewhere of how I built them, I'll dig them out when I get a chance. The bootable disk has most of the available XXDP diags on it. It will probably be easier for me just to build the SD card with XXDP using this method. I don't know how I'm going to"copy/build" the RSX11m+ disk.
 
PG31 said:
Hi Ian, I built the XXDP bootable disk using TU58 emulator. I have the details somewhere of how I built them, I'll dig them out when I get a chance. The bootable disk has most of the available XXDP diags on it. It will probably be easier for me just to build the SD card with XXDP using this method. I don't know how I'm going to"copy/build" the RSX11m+ disk.
Click to expand...

PG31,
I'd be interested in getting a copy of your DU bootable XXDP diagnostics as a .dsk file. I assume it is small enough that it could be emailled?

On your question of making a copy of your real RD54 with RSX11M+ you can do that with BRU but you can't BRU a running RSX system disk. You can run standalone BRU if that is on your RD54. You'll find it in [6,54] It is a memory resident RSX11S version of BRU that allows you to copy RSX disks on a system with only two drives. It's use is described in

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stu...C_RSX-11M-PLUS_4.0_Utilities_Manual_Aug87.pdf

on page 3-27

The first thing to do is make an RD54 sized .dsk file on the microSD. The easiest way to do that is download rsx11mplus_4_6_bl87.dsk from bitsavers and dd it to your microSD card and set the disk size with the SCSI2SD utility. This RSX11M+ distribution is RD54 in size and is bootable in case you need that and it should have standalone BRU if your RD54 doesn't. With that in your SCSI2SD card you should be able to make a copy of the RD54. The BRU copy is not a DD style image copy but a defragmented copy that you can increase file headers if you are running short. Use
PIP du:/FR
to see what you have now. For more info on that topic see:

http://retrocmp.com/how-tos/getting...-rsx-disks-to-increase-available-file-headers

Good luck with the BRU copy. It would be good to know what else might be on your RD54. Some of us are looking for BasicPlus2 V2.7 (the one on bit savers is corrupted) also I am looking for KED.TSK which was on early RSX systems.

Mark
 
Hi, You can obtain the xxdp image from the internet by searching for it "xxdp25.dsk". I can't remember exactly where I got it. The boot it using one of TU58 emulators. TU58em for example. Then in XXDP you will need to alter the devices in my text to suit your devices.

BOOTING UP XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR


XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5
REVISION: F0
BOOTED FROM DD0
124KW OF MEMORY
NON-UNIBUS SYSTEM

RESTART ADDRESS: 152000
TYPE "H" FOR HELP !

.

and

.RUN UPDAT
UPDAT .BIC

UPDAT - XXDP V2 UPDATE UTILITY REVISION G
RESTART: 004140

*CREATE DU0:

*
and

.COPY/BOOT DD0: DU0:

.COPY/FILES DD1: DU0:
 
Creating a XXDP Disk on UC07+SCSI2SD

Creating a XXDP Disk on UC07+SCSI2SD

PG31 said:
XXDP-XM EXTENDED MONITOR - XXDP V2.5
......
.RUN UPDAT
UPDAT .BIC

UPDAT - XXDP V2 UPDATE UTILITY REVISION G
RESTART: 004140

*CREATE DU0:
....
.COPY/BOOT DD0: DU0:

.COPY/FILES DD1: DU0:
Click to expand...


Hi PG31,

Thanks for the quick summary. I had been meaning to create a XXDP microSD card and this helped. However the CREATE DU0: resulted in a volume with only 960 free blocks (floppy sized?). When I tried to copy files, the system looped on writing to DU0:

Instead I used INITIALIZE DU0: This sized the volume correctly and the copies and boot went smoothly.

The combination of XXDP and the UC07 seems slow for copying and running commands as compared to my RL02. I suspect the monitor resets the controller frequently.

Regards,
Jerry
 
Appreciated
I can give that a go.
I have various perfectly good rl02 versions of XXDP (2.2 and 2.5 from memory) on rl02s.
Presumably so long as they have that "updat" command I can flip an image from one of those to the SD?

My use/knowledge of rt11/rsx11m etc is very limited - it was about "that needed to get the original V7 tapes onto our platters".
I am guessing these commands are a bit RT11ish?

I think I failed doing the tape-to-disk and ended up using Strav Pedolski(sp) at Glasgow Computer Science to do the move.
I do remember he was very very very unkeen to put out platters in his drives.
 
Hi Ian, Yes if you have bootable RL02 XXDP images you can do it that way. Boot from the RL02 and then create the SD card. You will need to change the device names DU0, DD0 and DD1 etc. to suit your setup.
Make sure you write protect the RL02, just in case:)
 
It is my understanding that PDP11 OSs ie RT11 & RSX11M although they support larger 'physical' drives they only support up to 32 Mb partitions so a large drive must be partitioned into up to 256 x 32 Mb separate partitons and the SCSI2SD will support a maximum of 4 logical SCSI drives => max of 32 GB SD card but at this is very unwieldy.

Or can any of the mebers correct me on the maximum partition size. of 32 Mb.

Thanks

Peter
 
peterbbu said:
It is my understanding that PDP11 OSs ie RT11 & RSX11M although they support larger 'physical' drives they only support up to 32 Mb partitions so a large drive must be partitioned into up to 256 x 32 Mb separate partitons and the SCSI2SD will support a maximum of 4 logical SCSI drives => max of 32 GB SD card but at this is very unwieldy.

Or can any of the mebers correct me on the maximum partition size. of 32 Mb.

Thanks

Peter
Click to expand...


RT-11 is limited to 32 MB Partitions x 256 and ~8.5GB per drive. I've managed to configure a TSX+ system with 32 simultaneously active volumes using the DUCM version of DU handlers (4!).

For RSX11 ODS1 (Files 11) I believe they supported volumes up to ~8.3Gb for RSX11M+ v4.6, but I have never run any that large myself.

Jerry
 
Thanks Jerry,

I'll take a look at RSX11Mplus v4.6. My professional dealings were with RSX11m v3.2 on 11/23 and 11/34 with RL01 + RX02 drives. Back in the days when the 32 Mb limit wasn't even a vaguest of thoughts / considerations.

Peter
 
peterbbu said:
Thanks Jerry,

I'll take a look at RSX11Mplus v4.6. My professional dealings were with RSX11m v3.2 on 11/23 and 11/34 with RL01 + RX02 drives. Back in the days when the 32 Mb limit wasn't even a vaguest of thoughts / considerations.

Peter
Click to expand...

Peter,
Just as Jerry said RSX11M+ V4.6 was enhanced to allow disk sizes upto 16,777,215. blocks (see RSX11M+ V4.6 Release Notes page 1-16) or just over 8 GB. I have two PDP-11/83s (UC07 + 2 x SCSI2SD) running RSX11M+ V4.6 with high reliability 2GB microSD cards formatted as a 300 MB system disk and a 1.6 GB data disk. Each system has a second SCSI2SD card with identical disk partitions so that system backups can take place on a regular basis. I'm not so worried about hardware failures (but I did have a big problem with disk corruption once when I used PMI memory that should only be used in an 11/84 on the 11/83 ) but more in case I delete something I didn't intend to.

The UC07 looks like it doesn't hit a limit until 4,294,967,295. blocks from what I can tell from its manual. The SCSI2SD V5 cards claim to be tested to 64GB. In practice, the 1.6GB disk is about as big as DEC made in the PDP-11 days, about the size of a RA92. With RSX virtual disks which are identical format to Simh .dsk files (just a collection of blocks), the large disk can be made into many smaller ones like RT11 also does. With this I was able to copy the RSX CDROM collection of the 32 DECUS RSX SIG tapes (but on individual disks) to one directory. From there any one can easily be mounted and a huge collection of RSX software is readily available. These disk images are easy to copy from Linux using the TCP/IP stack and utilities developed by Johnny Billquist.

One note on RSX disks on UC07 is that it is best not to use the transparent replacement of bad blocks (can be turned off in F.R.D.) by the UC07 so RSX can use the utilities it provides for BAD block discovery. It does take about 3 hours to BAD a DU disk with 1.6 GB, but you only have to do that once. After that BRU can be used to do backups and defragmentation etc dealing with only the blocks that have data.

Good Luck!
Mark Matlock
 
I have a question regarding UC07, SCSI2SD and multiple drives (sections on the SD-Card). How do you convert the PDP-11 to SD-Card blocknumbers for the different volumes? Does the first volume of the PDP-11 start at block 0 of the SD-Card? And does the start block of the second volume start at the block of the SD-Card following the last block of the partition configured in SCSI2SD? I know it is a bit misleading as SCSI2SD supports 4 disks on a SD-Card and that these disks are afaik not real partitions but just contiguous blocks on the SD-Card (actually a pity it does not use some sort of partition scheme to define the volumes, then it could use this information when starting). I was looking for such info but not find any direct explanation of how block numbers translate. Is there a document about it? I need to know as I don't have a system with a SCSI controller so when copying volumes I will have to use "dd".

Peter
 
cbscpe said:
I have a question regarding UC07, SCSI2SD and multiple drives (sections on the SD-Card). How do you convert the PDP-11 to SD-Card blocknumbers for the different volumes? Does the first volume of the PDP-11 start at block 0 of the SD-Card? And does the start block of the second volume start at the block of the SD-Card following the last block of the partition configured in SCSI2SD? I know it is a bit misleading as SCSI2SD supports 4 disks on a SD-Card and that these disks are afaik not real partitions but just contiguous blocks on the SD-Card (actually a pity it does not use some sort of partition scheme to define the volumes, then it could use this information when starting). I was looking for such info but not find any direct explanation of how block numbers translate. Is there a document about it? I need to know as I don't have a system with a SCSI controller so when copying volumes I will have to use "dd".

Peter
Click to expand...

Peter,
The most basic way is using some switches for the linux utility "dd" You are correct that you note the starting block and length
of partition and use it with the dd command. A couple examples are probably the easiest explaination. The commands below I execute
in MAC OSX shell but Ubuntu would be identical except for the name of the USB / MicroSD disk name.

With the commands below you need to be make sure that the OS does not have the SD cards mounted.
Also be sure you get the correct name for the USB disk.

On Mac before inserting the card do:
$ diskutil list
then insert the card
$diskutil list

the new disk name will be the newly inserted card.

on Linux the comparable command is

$ ls /dev/sd*


To copy a RD54 sized DU0 to a file (on OSX) for use with Simh:

sudo dd if=/dev/disk4 of=pdp11DU0.dsk bs=512 skip=0 count=311300

To copy the second partition with a RA92 sized DU1 to an OSX file:

sudo dd if=/dev/disk4 of=pdp11DU1.dsk bs=512 skip=311300 count=2950000

the disk names would be /dev/sdxxx in Linux



To copy from OSX .dsk files to the SD card is done except using seek instead of skip:

sudo dd if=pdp11DU0.dsk of=/dev/disk4 bs=512 seek=0 count=311300


sudo dd if=pdp11DU1.dsk of=/dev/disk4 bs=512 seek=311300 count=2950000


The key thing is that the block start point and length matches the values in scsi-util.
You can export a SCSI2SD card configuration to an .xml file for future reference from scsi-util
as well. Jorge Hoppe wrote a nice utility program that uses these .xml files to make it easier
to move images. I looked for it on his web site Retrocmp.com but couldn't find it quickly.

The key things are the use of seek and skip for positioning during reading and writing the sdcards.
Also, be very careful to get the correct output file name as sudo dd can overwrite a disk if you
are not pointing to the correct USB disk name.

Best,
Mark
 
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