topic Re: Installing hobbyist VAX license on VAXstation 4000 VLC in Operating System - OpenVMS

Installing hobbyist VAX license on VAXstation 4000 VLC

ralph_cologne — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:58:03 GMT

Could complete the installation successfully yesterday. I can boot from internal disk and login as system.

I have received a mail with one file attached containing different keys. It looks like a DCL script which can be executed under VMS.

But how can i transfer it there? Can VMS 7.3 read ISO CD without the need to install additional software? ODS filesystem may difficult to create on Win or MacOS X.

What about creating a tape with tar format for transfer?

Or dumping the file with dd to floppy without creating any archive or fs?

Or better set up a local server and transfer over network?

Or does it not work alltogether and i must call VMSLICENSE and enter all the required information there manually?

Thank you for any helpfull hints!

Re: Installing hobbyist VAX license on VAXstation 4000 VLC

H.Becker — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:28:13 GMT

>>> Or dumping the file with dd to floppy without creating any archive or fs?

First I have to admit I didn't try this. But I would use dd on one side and mount/for with copy on the VMS side. The copy may not copy all blocks so you may need to repeat the copy and append the result. Copy will create a file with fixed record size, 512 bytes. You need to change that with set file/attr=rfm=stmlf.

Re: Installing hobbyist VAX license on VAXstation 4000 VLC

Brian Reiter — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 07:36:08 GMT

Or if you're using a terminal emulator on a PC or MAC use cut and past. Assuming of course the VLC has a serial port.

For example login to the VLC and open an empty text file, from the PC or mac open up the email attachment and select all of its contents, paste directly into the terminal emulator. From the VLC, save the file and execute it. I use this routinely to transfer small files from machine to machine.

Re: Installing hobbyist VAX license on VAXstation 4000 VLC

Steven Schweda — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 09:26:39 GMT

Re: Installing hobbyist VAX license on VAXstation 4000 VLC

ralph_cologne — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 12:58:48 GMT

You are right, it should be possible.

But it doesnt work for me, i get "invalid media format". I have tried at least 2 CDs with no success (even when the drive is visible in the ouput of show dev).

The drive works on another machine - but i could not install from it. Maybe i should try another one. I have more drives, but the others do not support 512 byte blocks. But i will get a new used Plextor drive the next days.

Re: Installing hobbyist VAX license on VAXstation 4000 VLC

Bill Pedersen — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 13:17:59 GMT

1) it is a command procedure - self contained. It does all the heavy lifting of loading the licenses.

2) use a PC or MAC as your console. You can not start any other logins until you have VMS licensed. Nor can you start any networking.

3) set your terminal to be a VT220 with 132 characters

4) use EDIT or some editor on your PC/MAC where you can disable wrap.

5) select everything in the file

6) use EDIT on your VMS system. Or some variant EDIT/EDT or what ever. What ever editor you are comfortable with. Create a new file - HOBBYIST_PAKS.COM for instance.

7) disable WRAP in your editor

8) paste the contents of the license command procedure into your .COM file on the VMS system.

9) inspect the file. You should not have extra lines and you should not have lines that do not start with a $.

10) exit the editor

11) @HOBBYIST_PAKS.COM

This SHOULD load the licenses. If not, then most likely there is an error in the copied data that has occured due to the cut/paste operation and you will need to consider examining it.

Re: Installing hobbyist VAX license on VAXstation 4000 VLC

Steven Schweda — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:49:23 GMT