VAX 6200 System Technical User's Guide

This document is the VAX 6200 System Technical User's Guide (Order Number: EK-620AA-TM-001), first published in May 1988.

It serves as a comprehensive reference primarily for Digital Equipment Corporation's field service engineers (for installation and field-level repair) and OEMs (for writing specialized software, including customized operating systems).

The manual details the VAX 6200 system, a general-purpose, expandable computer designed for multiprocessing and time-sharing environments. Key components and interfaces covered include:

• VAX 6200 System Overview: Introduction to the system, its configurations, architecture, typical setup, and physical components (front/rear views, card cages, tape drive, I/O connections, power, and cooling).
• The XMI (VAX interconnect): The high-speed, 64-bit internal system bus (100 MB/s throughput) that interconnects CPU and memory modules, including its overview, addressing, arbitration, cycles, transactions, initialization, registers, and error handling.
• KA62A CPU Module: Describes the 32-bit virtual memory microprocessor, its features, private I/O address space, CPU section (data types, instruction sets, memory management, interrupts, exceptions, machine checks), cache memory (first- and second-level), XMI interface, registers, initialization, self-test, booting procedures, interprocessor communication, and error handling.
• MS62A Memory Module: Focuses on the 32 Mbytes of DRAM storage, its features, technical description, self-test, initialization, starting address and interleaving, control and status registers, and error handling.
• DWMBA XMI-to-VAXBI Adapter: Details the interface providing an information path between the XMI bus and I/O devices on the VAXBI bus, covering CPU and DMA transactions, registers, interrupts, error reporting, initialization, self-test, and diagnostics.
• Power and Cooling Systems: Explains the components of the power system (AC power controller, power and logic unit, power regulators, battery backup) and the cooling system (blowers, airflow sensors).

Overall, the guide provides information necessary for writing software customized to the CPU, performing field-level repairs, and understanding the detailed theory of the VAX 6200 system's operation, including its interrupts and error handling mechanisms.