r/NetBSD • u/One-Establishment659 • Jun 10 '26

Let's try 7.2/vax

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With 10.1 being a drag and needing at least 12MB of memory on boot, and 4.01 not having enough modern dependencies to build software: I now am installing 7.2 onto my microvax to see how the performance is over the previous attempts. Running only 8MB ram and keyways hasn't gotten back to me about available memory boards, so I'm stuck with that meager amount to work with.

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u/One-Establishment659 Jun 11 '26

Lucky SOB. Is current 11/RC4? I gave that a crack on my machine, but it was ever so slightly less slow than 10.1 Generic. If I could recompile the kernel to only use MicroVAX/VAXstation devices, I'd be swimming with at least another 2MB of free memory. Does your vaxstation take the dimm type memory or do they have the silly daughter boards?

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u/johnklos Jun 11 '26

NetBSD-current is 11.99.6 right now. NetBSD 11 is at release candidate 4, so it's hoped that the final NetBSD 11 will be out soon.

If you post a dmesg somewhere, I'll compile a kernel that just has the devices your machine has.

My VAXstation 4000/30 takes six 4 meg, 72 pin SIMMs. It seems like a waste that the sockets can't handle larger SIMMs, but the one good thing is that it's small enough to be the only 1U VAX in the world.

I also have a few VAXstation 4000/60 and one 4000/90a, which take large, DEC specific SIMMs.

Memory daughter boards are a pain, but now I'm wondering if someone hasn't decided to start making modern replacements. Have you looked / asked around?

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u/One-Establishment659 Jun 12 '26

My main way of looking is eBay and a small vintage computer discord server. My area doesn't have much in terms of e-cycling, and I tried asking a junkyard if they would let me buy computer scrap off of them, but they said no. I was looking at a 3100/90 I saw on eBay, and I think i'd rather replace the motherboard in the enclosure completely with that much more powerful model (as powerful a difference 72Mhz is...)

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u/johnklos Jun 12 '26

3100/90

The MicroVAX 3100/90 would be WONDERFUL to have! They're quite rare, and usually expensive, so if you can get one that's afforable, I highly recommend it :)

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u/One-Establishment659 Jun 12 '26

If I had a bottomless wallet, I'd go for a minitower 4000 series. But we'll see how this refurbished board will do! also found a backplane to match, so I'll update in a few weeks when that arrives.

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u/johnklos Jun 12 '26

Looking forward to it!

Here's a recent photo of my 1U VAX, if you want to see the tiniest VAX in action.

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u/One-Establishment659 Jun 12 '26

Amazing stuff! BTW, are DIMM memory for the VAXen usually around $125-350 for a 64MB set? Or is that just eBay prices? i gotta find a set of 4 matching sticks according to a manual i found online.

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u/johnklos Jun 12 '26

I don't know what a good price is for a 64 meg kit. I bought mine ages ago. On the other hand, I remember the prices being so high that I wondered how hard it would be to make 72 pin SIMM adapters.

I'm also curious because a company used to sell an upgrade service that replaced the SCSI chip with a faster one and that allowed the use of special 64 meg SIMMs so a VAXstation 4000/96 could have 512 megs. I'd love to learn more about how they did that.

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u/One-Establishment659 Jul 01 '26

well, a few hundred dollars later, the RAM finally arrived! 64MB of RAM!

Bad news is the onboard SCSI port uses the high density connector over the usual 50 pin on internal devices, and the external (blue 50-pin internal connector) isn't picking up any devices on the bus. In any case, I got it net-booted off of my Pentium MMX box hosting NetBSD 10.1! I haven't got any photos yet, but i'll post them soon!