VMS Question...

[Johnny Billquist]

On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 shoppa_classiccmp at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa) wrote:

> VAX6000 systems are probably the ultimate in over-engineering for
> reliability and although they've got a lot fewer boards than a 11/780
> they still have some BI-bus contact reliability issues despite a
> much slicker edge connector and less age.

You haven't worked on the 86x0 systems, I can hear...
The 6000 series are a joke in comparision.

The 86x0 systems are designed to continue to work even when chips
actually don't work. Those faults are logged, alternate signal paths are
activated, and the board should be scheduled for replacement at the next
normal PM. So yes, there are double sets of registers, paths, and
whatnots, so that most faults actually don't stop the machine from
running.

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol