Re: Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) VM Closing
Thanks to everyone for the good wishes. Not much to take a picture of. The HMC and a 3270 sit at the operator's table. And the 9672 is just a big refrigerator-sized black box without any lights on the outside. However, if I can figure out how to run my new digital camera, and where to post the pictures, I shall.
Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) VM Closing
After slightly missing the closing date of end of 2001, it looks like we will be shutting down sometimes between October 1 and December 30. One good thing about our VM/ESA 2.4 system -- no new bugs in a very long time. I have been baby-sitting the system on a part-time basis for the last four years, so I will be really retired.
Re: IPL Help for old 9672 with VM/ESA 2.4
Although we have IPLed our VM/ESA 2.4 on our 9672 using the HMC, I also need to know how to run a DDR restore. With a DDR tape that I had built with DDR at the front, followed by a full-pack dump after it, I could not get it to work under VM. With a tape at 181 and the disk pack attached at 521, both I 181 PARM AUTO0521 and I 181 LOADPARM AUTO0521 came back to my console asking for input. Perhaps it would work if run on the bare iron. Or, perhaps, I did not understand Hans Rempel when he wrote: You will need to IPL the standalone DDR tape and add the following 8 character value AUTODDDA to the PARM field. DDDA is the address of the disk drive to receive the output from the DDR restore. This IPL provides no messages and will load the DDR program and restore tape data to disk drive DDDA. Upon successful completion a disable PSW state will be loaded "PSW 000A ".
Re: IPL Help for old 9672 with VM/ESA 2.4
Thank you for all the responses. The consensus is to try to find used controllers. The FLEXCUB solution is more elegant and versatile, but we have no xSeries machines lying around, and are looking for a cheap solution. By the way, I understand that even if we can get our system to load via the Hardware Management Console, that would not be enough to support the stand-alone utilities such as DDR, should we need to restore disks from tape in case of a bad disk. Is that so?
IPL Help for old 9672 with VM/ESA 2.4
This is a request to you archaeologist. We have a 9672-A14, running VM/ESA 2.4, that was originally supposed to die in 2001. It is still alive, but not feeling too well. The big problem is our 3274 (you read right) controllers. The 3174s are gone, but we need something when/if we have to IPL. We have two 3274s, neither in good shape. IBM has announced that they will no longer give us a service contract on them, but the machine will probably have to work after that date. We are looking for an alternate way to IPL the system. We have been unable to do so using the hardware management console. Either we don't know how, or we are too far out of date for it to work. We were told by an IBM expert, that it does can not work on our system. It looks like we have to buy an old controller of some kind -- 2074, 3174, 3274, or engage in prayer that the electricity to the 3274s does not go down. Even without having to power them up, we have had one instance of a controller stopping working. I would appreciate any ideas of how to proceed. I also have a related question. Our SYSTEM CONFIG file contains: Operator_Consoles 0320 321 9A0 9B0 SYSTEM_CONSole Emergency_Message_Consoles 0320 321 9A0 9B0 SYSTEM_CONSole Because of the problems with controllers the operator logged on to 321, not at IPL time. When we SHUTDOWN the system we had working terminals on 321 and 9A0, but got no message. When we tried to IPL, the system tried to use 320, and did not switch to 321 nor to 9A0. Was that because the controller for 320 and 321 was active?No real problem, because I changed to console address in the load parameter screen in the HMC, and was able to proceed, but I am interested in why it didn't work. As I said, a problem for archaeologists. (My real archaeologist daughter-in-law was unable to help.)
