Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!ucbvax!RICHTER.MIT.EDU!krowitz From: krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: Questions on DN3000. Please help. Message-ID: <9009281340.AA00242@richter.mit.edu> Date: 28 Sep 90 13:40:10 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 56 That's some list of questions ... The disk controller is probably an Ompti 8800/8810/8610. Apollo does not support the Western Digital WD7000 on the DN3000's. These Ompti controllers are used with Micropolis 1355 (150 Mb), Maxtor EXT-4380 (350 Mb, slow), or Micropolis 1558 (350 Mb, fast) drives. The controllers are physically capable of handing two ESDI drives, and Apollo's software supports two drives per controller on the DN4000 and DN3500/4500 as long as both drives on the controller are the same model. The DN3000 hardware configuration process (EX CONFIG from the hardware boot level) does not, however, give you the option of specifying a second disk drive on your controller. Whether there is a workaround to this arbitrary limitation is unknown, at least to me. The CPU is a 12 Mhz 68020 with a 12 Mhz 68881 FPU. If the machine is a model 3010 or 3010A, then it has a 68551 PMMU, otherwise it has a custom memory management unit daughter board which plugs into the socket for the 68551 (the first units came out prior to the availability of Motorola's chip). In the later case, processes are limited to a virtual address space of 64 Mb, including all system libraries (commonly ~4 to 6 MB). The system will run with the 4 Mb of RAM, but good performance under Domain/OS SR10.2 really requires 6 to 8 Mb. The system can hold a maximum of 4 2-Mb memory cards if it is a DN3000 or DN3010. If it is a DN3010A, then it has a single memory card which is either a 4 Mb or an 8 Mb card, in which case upgrading the memory requires that you swap out the existing card. The systems have a total of 7 XT/AT slots available. On earlier models, 2 slots were XT slots and 5 were AT slots. This was changed on later models to 1 XT and 6 AT slots. Unless your PC boards are hardware compatible with on of Apollo's supported devices, you will have to write your own I/O device driver. This is non trivial. It requires the GPIO (General Purpose I/O) package, which is an optional software product not included in the OS and which has *nothing* to do with BSD or SYS V device drivers. Be forwarned. This system was first introduced in early 1986, and is now over 4 years old. Although up until the introduction of the DN2500 roughly 12 months ago, the DN3000 was Apollo's bread and butter machine, HP is now pushing real hard to get its installed base to trade these machines in for HP 9000's. The rumors are that SR11 won't run on anything with less than 12 or 16 Mb, and that OSF will only be available on the HP 9000's -- not on any of the earlier Apollo- designed hardware. If you want a personal workstation for your home, and the price is right, go ahead and buy it ... but keep in mind that the DN3000 is a dead end machine, even though your particular unit may only be 12 months old. -- David Krowitz krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109) krowitz%richter.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet (in order of decreasing preference)