VAXstation 3100-M38 Memory + Ultrix ?
Michael Kraemer
I have this vintage VS3138 running Ultrix/VAX 4.5.
The machine has these strange memory cards,
base + piggy back unit.
Recently I acquired cards with larger capacity,
at least that's what I thought.
Console (TEST 50) tells me I should have 32MB
(8MB onboard plus the two extra cards),
which looks OK to me.
However, when I boot Ultrix, it tells
me it sees only 20MB.
Is this a known behaviour, or
does it mean one of the memory boards
went belly-up in the mean time ?
I've seen similar behaviour on DECstations,
where certain memory configurations are accepted
by the console, but are rejected by Ultrix.
TIA,
MK
Bob Koehler
> hello world,
>
> I have this vintage VS3138 running Ultrix/VAX 4.5.
I'll assume you mean VAXStation 3100 Model 38. Shortened forms are
not unique. (Maybe it's a VAXServer?)
> The machine has these strange memory cards,
> base + piggy back unit.
> Recently I acquired cards with larger capacity,
> at least that's what I thought.
> Console (TEST 50) tells me I should have 32MB
> (8MB onboard plus the two extra cards),
> which looks OK to me.
> However, when I boot Ultrix, it tells
> me it sees only 20MB.
> Is this a known behaviour, or
> does it mean one of the memory boards
> went belly-up in the mean time ?
IIRC, in ULTRIX days you may have had to regenerate the kernel to
recognise more memory.
Michael Kraemer
>>I have this vintage VS3138 running Ultrix/VAX 4.5.
>
>
> I'll assume you mean VAXStation 3100 Model 38.
Yes. Sometimes I prefer sloppy language.
> IIRC, in ULTRIX days you may have had to regenerate the kernel to
> recognise more memory.
OK, I'll look into this one, but
I'm not sure if this is generally true for "modern" versions
such as 4.5. At least with DECstations I observed that the
Ultrix boot procedure immediately reported the increase
in available memory after a memory upgrade.
I think I saw a similar effect for the VAXstations,
but there Ultrix maxes out at 20MB.
I find it confusing that the OS reports different numbers
than the console.
A similar effect occurs with DECstations when they are
populated with RAM parts of different capacity (i.e.
mixed 8 and 32MB). I once had a single 32MB part in the
first memory slot and 8MB in the remaining slots.
I was happy the console reported lots of memory,
but Ultrix only took the first 32MB :-(
This behaviour is even mentioned in the Ultrix FAQ,
but no mention of Ultrix on VAX.
Bob Koehler
>
> Yes. Sometimes I prefer sloppy language.
>
Actually, I see it now in the title.