The collected works of dragon_cb_cz

dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 20, 2007, 2:22 a.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Dec. 20, 2007, 2:34 a.m...
pipeline wrote:
pentium wrote: Will there be any problems installing AIX 1.3 on a Model 55 SX with a PureData network card and a 160Mb ESDI drive?
I have one kicking around and I find it's not good enough for OS/2.

You need a real 386/486 to run AIX. An SX won't cut it.

You can run supposedly AIX 1.x on ISA PCs, but they have to be 100% IBM compatible, and AIX doesn't support any non-MCA network cards.


This is a nonsense, you can of course run AIX PS/2 on 386sx sytem. I do in fact, it runs rather happily on my PS/2 Model 65sx, which is 386SX-based. There's no difference between 386SX and DX from the operating system's point of view.

AIX PS/2 with the latest patches should run on non-MCA PC hardware, but I don't think it's worth the energy one would have to invest in such thing. Even getting it to run on some IBM MCA hardware is almost impossible - right now I'm trying to run it on my 76i with no success so far :(
dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 19, 2007, 6:22 p.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Dec. 20, 2007, 6:25 a.m...
porter wrote:
dragon_cb_cz wrote: right now I'm trying to run it on my 76i with no success so far :(


Yes, yes! I could install on IDE but had to boot from floppy, so I added a SCSI controller, it installed but could not boot from SCSI unless the drive was < 1023Mb, so now I have 500Mb drive and it boots fine.

Problem now is it's never going to work with the 3Com MCA EtherLink III card I have, so networking will have to be SLIP. :shock:


My 76i came with a SCSI controller and 280MB drive, they work just fine for installation but when trying to boot from harddrive after installation, the kernel panics with some strange message, which I can't remember now (I'm 160 kms away from that machine right now). I used PTF0024 boot and install floppies, which makes me wonder - the default kernel installed comes from the boot floppies or from BOS disk set? If from BOS, this could be the problem...

As for the etherlink, have you seen this: http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/ohlandl/AIX ... _NICs.html ? I think it should work, but I haven't tried myself (I don't have the card, but I was thinking about getting one), could you test it and report your results? I could use tokenring instead of ethernet, but having another machine running as a TR<->Ethernet gateway would be kinda annoying.
dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 19, 2007, 6:22 p.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Dec. 20, 2007, 10:21 a.m...
porter wrote: And it should rebuild the kernel on the harddisk.

?? What should rebuild the kernel on the hardisk? The installation program at the end of install process? Or do I have to boot from PTF0024 boot floppy and apply the PTF0024 to the installed system?

porter wrote:
dragon_cb_cz wrote: As for the etherlink, have you seen this: http://ps-2.kev009.com:8081/ohlandl/AIX ... _NICs.html ?


Been there, done that, no go, I need an "IBM Ethernet Adapter/A".

Any specific reason to think only this card will work? Various other cards should work from what I've read. BTW is your card really EtherLink III MC (3c529) and not Etherlink/MC (3c523) ?
dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 19, 2007, 6:22 p.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Dec. 20, 2007, 12:26 p.m...
I'll probably get one of those anyway, I was promised a couple of other MCA machines and one never has enough MCA ethernet cards :) I'll try my luck with WD 8003E/A too - AIX should support those. Was there ever report of somebody using the 3com cards succesfully?
dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 19, 2007, 6:22 p.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Jan. 4, 2008, 1:22 p.m...
Nice, I will post my pictures as soon as I can find a decent camera :) Anyway, I have it working just fine on both 76i and 65sx, got SLIP working, WD8003E/A is on the way :) The only problem with the 65SX is that it has only 4MB RAM - anyone having those 4MB 80ns SIMMs it takes and willing to part with them?

Btw, I see you have reworked your DS1287 - I didn't feel like opening the chip, so I pointed my browser to the Maxim (owner of Dallas semiconductor) website and requested a free sample - and they were more than happy to send me four pieces for free, so you can try your luck or I could possibly donate one - the shipping won't cost much.
dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 19, 2007, 6:22 p.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Jan. 4, 2008, 4:32 p.m...
Well, I "got it working" in the sense that AIX lets me login using a serial terminal on /dev/tty0 and then I do something like

Code: Select all

sliplogin -c -b 38400 -h 192.168.2.2 -r 192.168.2.1 -n 255.255.255.0
. Then I detach from the terminal, and run

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slattach -d -p cslip -s 38400 /dev/ttyS0
ifconfig sl0 192.168.2.1 dstaddr 192.168.2.2 netmask 255.255.255.0
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 192.168.2.0/24 -j SNAT --to-source my_public_ip
to start SLIP and configure the interface on the Linux side and get NAT working. The last thing, on the AIX box:

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route add default 192.168.2.1 0
to add default gateway, thats all that is needed. I couldn't find slattach or something like that in AIX, so I didn't bother trying to setup AIX as a SLIP client - is that what you meant?
dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 19, 2007, 6:22 p.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Jan. 20, 2008, 1:18 p.m...
BTW, I got myself 11 little beasts today - PS/2 Model 95 Server (9595). They're not in very good shape (they were stored in a wet garage :( ) so I'm not sure how much of them are actually working, but it looks like at least some of them might work, these would make a really nice AIX PS/2 machine! It will take some time to clean and test them, but I'll post my results here :)
dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 19, 2007, 6:22 p.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Jan. 25, 2008, 6:27 p.m...
pentium wrote: You found some Model 95's?! :shock:
Oh man, I have been looking for one or two of those systems!


Yeah, I've got 11 of them at the moment, and probably 3-6 more are still somewhere in that garage. I would more than gladly donate one or two, but those are really heavy beasts - I nearly broke my back during loading and unloading the car - I don't want to imagine how much would shipping anywhere outside Czech Republic cost.

Well I guess at the very least you have mare than enough spare parts to make at least one very nice system.


I did a quick check today, out of the 9 machines I've got at home now, 5 appear to be functional, but none of them has a harddrive and only one has memory (I had to swap it between them to check them all). The other four don't power up at all - probably some problem with the PSU - I will check fuses later.

All of them have SCSI controllers and SuperVGA MCA cards, some of them have TokenRing cards, I even got one Ethernet card with them and four others are on their way (hopefully). What surprised me, they're not as noisy as I imagined them - in fact, they're more silent than my Model 65SX. I don't have much time to play with them right now (exam period at school), but I'll keep you informed how it goes. I really look forward to running AIX on these!
dragon_cb_cz
From Prague, Czech Republic
Who joined Dec. 19, 2007, 6:22 p.m.
Wrote on the subject of AIX 1.3 at Jan. 28, 2008, 5:39 a.m...
pipeline wrote: Sounds like you found the motherlode.

Look at your ethernet and TR cards very carefully. 100 mbit cards are fairly uncommon, and they can go for quite a lot of money on e-bay. (Conversely, 10 and 4/16 cards aren't worth a bent nickel.)


I haven't checked very carefully, but I'm pretty sure none of them is 100mbit - the ethernet card is 10mbit for sure (it's 10base2, not 10baseT) and I don't think there were any 100mbit TR cards widely available? I'm OK with 10mbit ethernet for now, I don't plan any serious use of AIX, I'm "just curious" :)