Comments on: Just got a DEC AlphaServer 800…

By: neozeed

neozeed — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 16:02:29 +0000

In reply to Leon. Sorry I have passed that machine down when I moved out of New York I think 10 years ago

By: Leon

Leon — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 13:31:14 +0000

Nice machine!
in case you want to sell it, I would be interested

By: Neozeed

Neozeed — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:00:56 +0000

I still prefer NT because it's something more fun from the era. And I have the tools, unlike vms. And while I do have a tru64 media set, it runs in an emulator just fine... nt on the alpha is more interesting to me because it cannot be emulated.

And it's familiar and fun.

By: Gianluca Bonetti

Gianluca Bonetti — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:49:58 +0000

Hello
Nice machine, that AlphaServer 800!
Don't waste your time with Windows NT, you could use an up to date operating system like Debian or NetBSD.
Or take the chance to install OpenVMS on real hardware.
OpenVMS hobbyist program offers you free licenses for hobbyist use, visit http//www.openvmshobbyist.com and enjoy!
Ciao!
gl

By: Bofh

Bofh — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:20:20 +0000

Thank you for hints!

By: Neozeed

Neozeed — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:24:54 +0000

Hmm well the 'easy' way out for me, with a UNIX background would be to do something like this:

find out what kind of hard disk is in the MicroVAX. Setup a copy of SIMH with that hard disk, then install VMS to it with the tape images from that great site.

Get the NetBSD VAX setup and netboot the VAX, and dd the simh image onto the real disk....

I'm not sure if there is a netboot for VMS, but considering all the MOP stuff there probably is.. it'll be easier to setup a machine with SIMH, and get the microvax to netboot then work out some kind of restore strategy.....

Sorry it's not great, but that's all I can come up with right now. Otherwise, you could try asking on the SIMH mailing list, that's where a LOT of old VMS people hang out.

By: Bofh

Bofh — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 19:18:08 +0000

Yesterday found this blog on the Net. Very delicious! Thank you!
Friend of mine bought recently MicroVax II and searching for MicroVMS 4.x installation floppy images with no success. Can you help? There is MicroVMS 4.7 TK50 image on the net http://www.vaxhaven.com/images/6/6c/Aq-kx71a-bn_microvms_v4.7_bin_tk50.tap.gz . Unfortunately floppies is a sole available path to install something on his Vax for the moment.

By: Neozeed

Neozeed — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:56:26 +0000

Oh, and I used the alphabios 'disk' utility to create a 5mb partition… and then just hit the 'install NT' selection and away 2000 went…

By: Neozeed

Neozeed — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:55:26 +0000

Well a screwed up Elsa video driver (it pulled the i386 stuff) screwed up my install… So I tried the 2072 build of 2000 server, and on it's install it said that the terminal server portion will only run for 90 days!… So it's back to NT 4.0 TSE for me… I'll just skip the video.

On that note, I noticed that I've got the 5.70 BIOS with all the flags for Windows 2000… I'm not sure where the bios came from, as the only download is for 5.69. At any rate, 2000 installed fine, but I need multiple users for more then 90 days.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:04:22 +0000

hey, there is a way to get around the timebomb (i modified the iso SETUPP.INI and some .HIV registry hive)

but i am stuck at ARCINST and

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc959272.aspx

i have AlphaBios 5.69 (latest??)

will have to mess with this tomorrow…