KA650 problem

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm trying to build my first release (4.3BSD-Quasijarus1), and I have the following problem. I'm currently away from my main VAX farm, and so I have rounded up a new VAX for this task from an independent source. It's a KA650-based MicroVAX specially made for Xerox. The outer cabinet is made by Xerox, but it has a BA23 mounted inside. There is no video, just a serial terminal. My first problem was that the beast refused to power up. I turn on the power, but there is nothing on the console and the hex LED display on the back says 9. I power-cycled it several times with zero effect, and then I took the CPU board out to look at it. It looked perfectly normal, and I put it back in. Then imagine my joy when I power up the VAX and this time it works! After that I worked with it for a while, and in the process I turned it on and off a couple of times and it didn't have any problem powering up. My next step was installing Ultrix, which is the platform I have chosen to use for putting together the initial Quasijarus SCCS tree and cross- compiling the very first Quasijarus build. However, when I tried to boot from the Ultrix tape, I got a "?4B CTRLERR" (after an _extremely_ long wait with a lot of retries), which according to my docs means some hardware error. I reasoned that it has to be either the TK50 drive or the TQK50 controller. I don't have any spare TK50s at this location, but I do have one spare controller, and so I tried swapping it. I turned the machine off, swapped the board, and turned it back on. And guess what, that ugly 9 came back! I haven't been able to power up the VAX since then. I started investigating. I don't have any docs for KA650, but I do have some for KA655. According to these docs, the KA650 series CPUs have very elaborate ROM diagnostics organized in the form of scripts, some of which are executed at power-up. The manual lists all scripts, indicating the order of the tests and the hex LED display codes. According to this manual, the only tests which display a 9 are fairly late in the sequence and are fairly benign (shouldn't stall the power-up even if failed). The problem I'm seeing, OTOH, appears to be very early. For example, the console line loopback test appears to be one of the very first, and yet my VAX always stalls on the 9, even if I put the switch in the T-in-the-circle position. I have also watched the hex LED display very carefully right as I flip the power switch, and as far as I can tell it goes directly from F (waiting for DCOK) to 9. Finally, disconnecting the bulkhead and the memory interconnect produces absolutely no effect, suggesting that the culprit is the CPU board and nothing else. Also pushing the RESTART button on the front panel produces absolutely no effect, if the 9 was there it just stays there, there is no F appearing for a short time or anything like that. What does the RESTART button do, anyway? Does anyone here have a clue as to what's going on? Does anyone have a KA650 manual? Can anyone tell what the hell does the 9 stand for? Any ideas on how this can be fixed (other than replacing the CPU board)? TIA. Sincerely, Michael Sokolov Phone: 440-449-0299 (Home) 216-217-2579 (Cellular) ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id TAA06383 for pups-liszt; Fri, 20 Nov 1998 19:08:01 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from europe.std.com (europe.std.com [199.172.62.20]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id TAA06373 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>au>; Fri, 20 Nov 1998 19:07:51 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from bdc(a)world.std.com) Received: from world.std.com by europe.std.com (8.7.6/BZS-8-1.0) id DAA11514; Fri, 20 Nov 1998 03:07:45 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost by world.std.com (TheWorld/Spike-2.0) id AA01332; Fri, 20 Nov 1998 00:07:44 -0800 Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 00:07:44 -0800 (PDT) From: Brian D Chase <bdc(a)world.std.com> To: PUPS Mailing List <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au> Cc: NetBSD/vax Mailing List <port-vax(a)netbsd.org> Subject: Loads of PDP-11 docs on Ebay. Message-Id: <Pine.SGI.3.95.981120000517.28198A-100000(a)world.std.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk Just an FYI for all you PDP-11 collectors out there. A search for "DEC" under the Computers section of Ebay yields an impressive number of PDP-11 docs. -brian. --- Brian "JARAI" Chase | http://world.std.com/~bdc/ | VAXZilla LIVES!!! Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id JAA09000 for pups-liszt; Sat, 21 Nov 1998 09:58:30 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA08995 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>au>; Sat, 21 Nov 1998 09:58:21 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from grog(a)freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id JAA27497; Sat, 21 Nov 1998 09:27:46 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) id JAA05923; Sat, 21 Nov 1998 09:27:40 +1030 (CST) Message-ID: <19981121092740.F1005(a)freebie.lemis.com> Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 09:27:40 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> To: Brian D Chase <bdc(a)world.std.com>om>, PUPS Mailing List <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au> Cc: NetBSD/vax Mailing List <port-vax(a)netbsd.org> Subject: Re: Loads of PDP-11 docs on Ebay. References: <Pine.SGI.3.95.981120000517.28198A-100000(a)world.std.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.3.95.981120000517.28198A-100000(a)world.std.com>om>; from Brian D Chase on Fri, Nov 20, 1998 at 12:07:44AM -0800 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Friday, 20 November 1998 at 0:07:44 -0800, Brian D Chase wrote: What's Ebay? Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id KAA09072 for pups-liszt; Sat, 21 Nov 1998 10:32:18 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f Received: from europe.std.com (europe.std.com [199.172.62.20]) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA09067 for <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>au>; Sat, 21 Nov 1998 10:32:10 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from bdc(a)world.std.com) Received: from world.std.com by europe.std.com (8.7.6/BZS-8-1.0) id SAA23532; Fri, 20 Nov 1998 18:31:51 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost by world.std.com (TheWorld/Spike-2.0) id AA16761; Fri, 20 Nov 1998 15:31:51 -0800 Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 15:31:51 -0800 (PDT) From: Brian D Chase <bdc(a)world.std.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> Cc: PUPS Mailing List <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>au>, NetBSD/vax Mailing List <port-vax(a)netbsd.org> Subject: Re: Loads of PDP-11 docs on Ebay. In-Reply-To: <19981121092740.F1005(a)freebie.lemis.com> Message-Id: <Pine.SGI.3.95.981120153054.16667A-100000(a)world.std.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au Precedence: bulk On Sat, 21 Nov 1998, Greg Lehey wrote: Sorry about that... I'd thought everybody knew by now. It's the world's largest and most popular on-line auction service. http://www.ebay.com/ -brian. --- Brian "JARAI" Chase | http://world.std.com/~bdc/ | VAXZilla LIVES!!! Received: (from major@localhost) by minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au (8.9.1/8.9.1) id EAA12024 for pups-liszt; Sun, 22 Nov 1998 04:51:52 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au) X-Authentication-Warning: minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au: major set sender to owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au using -f