4.2BSD on uVaxII ??

[Sebastian Schmitz]

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Reply-To: snoopy at ecrcvax.UUCP (Sebastian Schmitz)
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Organization: European Computer-Industry Research Centre, Munchen, W. Germany
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Thank you very much Pete for setting me right on a few points
re. the MV ][. However I would like to point out that it was
DEC staff who claimed that the MV I had a dual ported memory.
I also always thought that the MV I was basically a VAX on a
Q-Bus and hence so slow. The only other machine I knew of at
the time which was a 32 bit thing (provided you allow me to say
a M68k is a 32bit machine) was the Cadmus and they do have dual
ported memory for the CPU to tick whilst the peripherals sit on
the (slower) QBus. The Cadmus is spoken of as a 'fast' machine
(whatever that means =~ a 730/750 I presume ????)

Also my remark about binary compatibility was because I was
doubtful, in how much ULTRIX for little VAXen was the same as
ULTRIX for the bigger VAXen. I do know that ULTRIX for the
Biggies is 4.2 with a few dinky bugfixes/spedups, a daemon for
the error log etc... I was just wondering how much they stuck
to ULTRIX for the smaller VAXen, because from some of the stuff
I heard on the Net, it seemed that the MV I was not that
successful in this area. But then I must say that DEC do learn
if they do something wrong. Good for you - there are not many
companies that admit as freely as DEC to the fact that "yes,
this was not so clever".

Finally the configuration with the 5 hard discs was spoken of
as possible but not recommended (for back-up reasons etc.). The
5 "secondary storage" modules per MV ][ were explained to me
somewhat peevishly as problems with the two controllers
address spaces in the QBus. This was only in passing though and
I may well have misheard. I'm sure noone mentioned the power
supply though.

Once again, thanks for the first "hard info" on this.
Now: off the net for further chat. We can gladly converse
individually.

Incidentally I do agree that the MV ][ should not have 48
terminals on it. But then DEC in the US always knows a lot more
than DEC Germany about new machines etc.. Sigh. Wish you were
here (sorry Pink Floyd :-))
-- 
  Love,
  Sebastian (Snoopy)

"You haven't done it, till you've done it with pointers"

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