Re: [Simh] Status of alpha simulator

[Zane Healy]

I was able to compile DECaxp, but I couldn’t figure out how to do anything with 
it.  I opted to go with the same Linux version as the author.  Has anyone 
managed to get it working?

Zane 



> On May 7, 2020, at 7:01 PM, Timothy Stark  wrote:
> 
> There is a few open source Alpha emulators like ES40 and DECaxp (available on 
> Gitlab).  I got a copy of DECaxp but only sources.  I am figuring how to 
> compile it.
>  
> Tim
>  
> From: Simh  On Behalf Of Z Sztrprszkolwia
> Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 3:51 PM
> To: simh@trailing-edge.com
> Subject: [Simh] Status of alpha simulator
>  
> I've just realised there is a directory with some files for an alpha 
> simulator, but it seems to be lacking most peripherals. Given the uncertain 
> situation with being able to keep running OpenVMS on the VAX sim past 2021, 
> I'm wondering why the alpha sim never got finished (some unsurmountable 
> technical issue, or just lack of interest or dev time), and whether it would 
> be achievable to get it running OpenVMS at some point in the future.
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Re: [Simh] HPE has started emailing the final hobbyist licenses

[Zane Healy]

What exactly does 5.5-2H4 get you that isn’t in 5.5-2?  Is it more than just 
extra hardware support?

Zane



> On Mar 13, 2020, at 5:17 AM, Ray Jewhurst  wrote:
> 
> 5.5-2H4 still requires a  PAK and also I have never been able to get that 
> specific image (from VAXHaven) to work but the TK50 version works fine. 
> 
> Ray 

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Re: [Simh] New release of PDP10 simulators.

[Zane Healy]

> I looked there for a bit.  For those not fluent in PDP-10, would it be 
> possible to add some instructions?  Or pointers to manuals (say, on 
> Bitsavers) that would help?

Hi Paul,
Here is what you want.

http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/pdp10emu.html

The PDP-10 is why I started the site.  I’ve been working on replacing dead 
links with Archive.org links where I can find them.

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Re: [Simh] OpenVMS Hobbyist Program

[Zane Healy]

On Mar 7, 2020, at 8:09 PM, Tony Nicholson  wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2020 at 11:39 AM Hunter Goatley  > wrote:
> [snip]
> 
> I had hoped that HPE would release non-expiring VAX PAKs, because why 
> not? They're out of the game, and no one else has the code for VAX. But 
> they apparently aren't going to do that, which effectively ends SIMH, 
> VAX, and Alpha for all but commercial use with purchased commercial 
> licenses.
> 
> Layered product license PAKs for Alpha and VAX are common for products 
> available
> for the hobbyist program.  That may be the reason why they couldn't issue
> non-expiring licenses for VAX - because they'd be non-expiring for Alpha too!

I was thinking the same thing, and it seems obvious that VSI is making money 
off of Alpha. 

> A VAX-VMS license PAK without layered products would be useless (to me).

IIRC, this was all we got with the original Hobbyist program.

Zane




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Re: [Simh] CP-V or CP-6?

[Zane Healy]

To the best of my knowledge, the Multics software that available the only thing 
available for the DPS-8 family.  I for one would love to be able to run GCOS-8 
again, but I don’t see that ever happening. 

Have you seen the Wikipedia page on CP-6?  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_CP-6

Zane




> On Feb 12, 2020, at 12:12 PM, Tom Perrine  wrote:
> 
> Recent mention of the SDS 940 and XDS reminded me of a system that I only 
> used for a year or so, but which was pretty fascinating to me:  CP-V and the 
> Honeywell follow-on CP-6.
> 
> Does anyone else remember these, or have ideas on where I might look for OS 
> media for them?
> 
> I *think* that the CP-V was running on the SDS HW and that CP-6 ran on either 
> Level 6 or more likely the DPS 8 series.  I remember lots of PL 6 programming 
> (man, I really miss PL 6).
> 
> Regards,
> Tom
> 
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Re: [Simh] Semi-OT: Terminal Recommendations for use with SIMH

[Zane Healy]

> On Sep 28, 2019, at 1:45 AM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
> xterm also on Mac for me.
> 
>  Johnny

What version of Mac OS are you running?  I have XQuartz 2.7.11 on my Mac OS X 
10.11.6 system, and it wouldn’t let me remap the keys.  I used to use the xterm 
on Mac, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and IRIX with the remap script.

I’d tried ZOC7, and a couple other solutions, before settling on SecureCRT.  I 
have to have a properly functioning keypad.  Even then I still have a DEC 
VT420, plugged into a DECserver sitting by my Mac.  I love my VT420’s, but at 
times I like to be able to cut and paste. :-)

Zane



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Re: [Simh] Semi-OT: Terminal Recommendations for use with SIMH

[Zane Healy]

> On Sep 28, 2019, at 12:45 PM, Richard  wrote:
> 
> In article 
> ,
>Dan Gahlinger  writes:
> 
>> I use only securecrt which has tons of DEC terminal simulations.
> 
> I like SecureCRT as well and it's what I've been using as my
> ssh/rlogin/telnet/serial port terminal client for years.

This has been my terminal emulator of choice for a couple years now.  The iPad 
version is usable, but lacks the ability to configure the keyboard, which is 
disappointing.  I spent a *LOT* on the Apple keyboard with the keypad.  I’m 
sort of able to import the key settings from my Mac Pro.  I’ve mainly been 
using it for VAX/VMS, OpenVMS, Multics, Linux, and OpenBSD.

>> I personally cannot stand putty.
> 
> I'm not a fan, but it has the advantage of being capable and free.

I finally had to break down and install it on my work laptop, so I could log 
into some “ultra-secure” Linux boxes.  I didn’t particularly like what I saw.

Zane




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Re: [Simh] VAX + Spectre

[Zane Healy]

It might be worth asking on comp.os.vms as well, it’s one of the few USENET 
groups that seems to still be active.

Zane



> On Sep 17, 2019, at 6:55 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> 
> "Spectre" is one of two notorious bugs of modern CPUs involving speculative 
> execution.  I rather doubt that VAX is affected by this but I suspect others 
> here have a lot more knowledge.
> 
>   paul
> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>> From: co...@sdf.org 
>> Subject: VAX + Spectre
>> Date: September 17, 2019 at 5:32:42 AM EDT
>> To: port-...@netbsd.org 
>> 
>> So, this is a bug report:
>> https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=86811 
>> 
>> 
>> GCC would like to know if VAX needs Spectre-related work.
>> Are any of the VAXes ever made capable of speculative execution? the
>> first tech for doing it was in 1967, so not entirely far-fetched.
> 
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Re: [Simh] VAXstation 4000 Model 60

[Zane Healy]

> On Jul 12, 2019, at 5:58 AM, Jeremy Begg  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am trying to set up SIMH on a new Linux server, an Intel NUC8i3BEH  with
> 16GB RAM and 250GB SSD running Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS.
> 
> I've built the VAXstation 4000 Model 60 simulator on this system and I
> didn't notice any errors while building.  (The build itself was very quick.)

If you get this up and running, please let us know.  I have a VAXstation 
4000/60 that is my last physical box.  I’d like to virtualize it, like the rest 
of my VMS environment here at home.

Due to the networking setup, I’d like to use the VAXstation 4000/60 simulator, 
since I should be able to simply restore the disk from a backup I’ve done.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] Release of PDP10 KA/KI and PDP6 simulators.

[Zane Healy]

> On Jul 10, 2019, at 4:29 AM, Richard Cornwell  wrote:
> 
> I am pleased to announce a new set of simulators for the PDP10 series
> of computers by DEC. The simulators currently run the PDP6, KA10 and
> KI10. I will be adding the KL10 later. The KA10 and KI10 simulators
> will run Tops 10 up to version 6.03. KA10 will run ITS and includes
> support for many of the custom devices and networking. The KA10 also
> will run various versions of WAITS (including those that use the BBN
> pager). 

Congratulations!  This is exciting news!  I’ll update my DEC emulation website 
as soon as I can.  My thanks to all involved for their efforts.  I’m 
particularly interested in the possibility of running WAITS.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] EXT :Re: VAX networking issue

[Zane Healy]

> On Jun 10, 2019, at 7:13 AM, Hittner, David T [US] (MS) 
>  wrote:
> 
> VMware is somewhat inconsistent in what triggers their network security to 
> block access. It's some bizarre internal algorithm. I've had VMware allow 
> network access for months and then all of a sudden shut off network access 
> with no apparent change to the configurations or usage of the VMs. I've even 
> seen the VMware network suddenly block working network access because someone 
> pinged the IP address of the VM hosting SIMH machines. :-(
> 
> There are ways to fine-tune the allowed network access via configuration 
> files to keep the overall enhanced security level up without enabling 
> promiscuous mode, but you'll have to RTFM the VMware documentation.

I’ll have to take a look at how better to handle this.  Knowing is half the 
battle.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] [SPAM] VAX networking issue

[Zane Healy]

> On Jun 10, 2019, at 12:40 AM, Tom  wrote:
> 
> On 06/06/2019 21:52, Zane Healy wrote:
>> I have a SIMH/VAX install that was on a Raspberry Pi2 until we had a power 
>> outage, now the RPi won’t recognize the SD card.  So I’m trying to migrate 
>> it to a VM (Ubuntu 16.04LTS).  It doesn’t seem to find the network.  I’m 
>> able to SSH to the host VM, so I know it’s on the network.  I’ve tried both 
>> the SIMH available for Ubuntu (v3.8), and current.  Of course this is the 
>> host with the Quorum disk for my Cluster.
> 
> If you power down a Pi without shutting down  the operating system there is a 
> very good chance the SD card is corrupted. I'd restore a working backup if 
> you can, or reinstall the SD from scratch as you never know quite what is 
> corrupted.
> 
> Tom

That’s pretty much what I suspected.  In this case though, it was preferable to 
migrate to a VM running on my VMware cluster.  The RPi2 will likely be 
repurposed for SIMH or something else.  It looks like both my RPi3’s survived 
the experience (DPS-8 and KLH10), and I want to get them moved into one of my 
racks (right now they’re in a rather precarious place on the floor).  Oddly 
enough, I’ve been considering a UPS for the Raspberry Pi’s.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] EXT :Re: VAX networking issue

[Zane Healy]

Thanks!  Putting the vSwitch into promiscuous mode did the trick.

What’s really strange is that it a VM on host1 would work, but not host2 or 
host3, until I made that change.  Yet, none of them were set to promiscuous.

Zane



> On Jun 7, 2019, at 8:36 AM, Hittner, David T [US] (MS) 
>  wrote:
> 
> VMware has put some serious security enhancements on network ports in the 
> last few releases to prevent spoofing and otherwise tighten network security 
> to best practices.
> 
> You might try enabling promiscuous mode on the vSwitch that you have the VM 
> connected to and see if that solves the "two mac addresses coming from the 
> same network port" problem.
> The vSwitch promiscuous mode is set to "reject" by default.
> 
> David
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Zane Healy
> Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2019 4:21 PM
> To: Mark Pizzolato 
> Cc: simh 
> Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] VAX networking issue
> 
> 
>> On Jun 6, 2019, at 2:11 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
> 
>> The above output is suspicious since it doesn't say that the XQ device 
>> has been attached to any interface.
>> 
>> What is the output of SHOW ETHER on this simulator?
>> Are you running as ROOT (which is required for network functionality on 
>> Linux unless you are using VDE Ethernet)?
>> Is the VM Hypervisor you're running under configured to pass arbitrary MAC 
>> addresses out of that VM?
>> 
>> Apart from these considerations relating to basic packet capabilities, once 
>> you have any networking functionality, you may encounter a problem that has 
>> been reported on some Linux systems.  You're not encountering this now, but 
>> if you do, you should add the following line to your configuration file:
>>  sim> SET CLOCK NOCATCHUP
>> 
>> The problem that is not always observed will be fixed soon and the SET CLOCK 
>> NOCATCHUP will no longer be necessary.
>> 
>> - Mark
>> 
> 
> I just figured out that this is a VMware issue.  I’m going to have to do some 
> checking.  I have a 3 system VMware cluster.  Two of the systems are HP SFF 
> PC’s, the third is an HP DL380 G7.  I just migrated the VM over to one of the 
> SFF systems, and it works.  The SIMH/VAX is now a member of the cluster.
> 
> I was unaware of SHOW ETHER, that should help me see what’s going on.  I’ll 
> shut the VM down and migrate it back to the DL380.
> 
> Zane
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Simh] VAX networking issue

[Zane Healy]

> On Jun 6, 2019, at 2:11 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:

> The above output is suspicious since it doesn't say that the XQ device has 
> been 
> attached to any interface.
> 
> What is the output of SHOW ETHER on this simulator?
> Are you running as ROOT (which is required for network functionality on Linux 
> unless you are using VDE Ethernet)?
> Is the VM Hypervisor you're running under configured to pass arbitrary MAC 
> addresses out of that VM?
> 
> Apart from these considerations relating to basic packet capabilities, once 
> you have any networking functionality, you may encounter a problem that has 
> been reported on some Linux systems.  You're not encountering this now, but 
> if you do, you should add the following line to your configuration file:
>   sim> SET CLOCK NOCATCHUP
> 
> The problem that is not always observed will be fixed soon and the SET CLOCK 
> NOCATCHUP will no longer be necessary.
> 
> - Mark
> 

I just figured out that this is a VMware issue.  I’m going to have to do some 
checking.  I have a 3 system VMware cluster.  Two of the systems are HP SFF 
PC’s, the third is an HP DL380 G7.  I just migrated the VM over to one of the 
SFF systems, and it works.  The SIMH/VAX is now a member of the cluster.

I was unaware of SHOW ETHER, that should help me see what’s going on.  I’ll 
shut the VM down and migrate it back to the DL380.

Zane




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[Simh] VAX networking issue

[Zane Healy]

I have a SIMH/VAX install that was on a Raspberry Pi2 until we had a power 
outage, now the RPi won’t recognize the SD card.  So I’m trying to migrate it 
to a VM (Ubuntu 16.04LTS).  It doesn’t seem to find the network.  I’m able to 
SSH to the host VM, so I know it’s on the network.  I’ve tried both the SIMH 
available for Ubuntu (v3.8), and current.  Of course this is the host with the 
Quorum disk for my Cluster.

*** vax Simulator being built with:
*** - compiler optimizations and no debugging support. GCC Version: 5.4.0.
*** - dynamic networking support using Linux provided libpcap components.
*** - Local LAN packet transports: PCAP TAP NAT(SLiRP)
*** - Per simulator tests will be run.
***
*** git commit id is 53ad66f57ebdec051d3345d5957a69707ddc3e32.
*** git commit time is 2019-06-04T00:02:17-07:00.


XQ  address=20001920-2000192F, no vector, BR4, MAC=AA:00:04:00:95:F2
type=DELQA-T, mode=DELQA, polling=disabled, sanity=OFF
throttle=disabled, DEQNALock=OFF, leds=(ON,ON,ON)

%SYSBOOT-I-SYSBOOT Mapping the SYSDUMP.DMP on the System Disk
%SYSBOOT-I-SYSBOOT SYSDUMP.DMP on System Disk successfully mapped 
%SYSBOOT-I-SYSBOOT Mapping PAGEFILE.SYS on the System Disk
%SYSBOOT-I-SYSBOOT SAVEDUMP parameter not set to protect the PAGEFILE.SYS
   OpenVMS (TM) VAX Version V7.3 Major version id = 1 Minor version id = 0
%WBM-I-WBMINFO Write Bitmap has successfully completed initialization.
  
%CNXMAN,  using remote access method for quorum disk
%VAXcluster-I-LOADSECDB, loading the cluster security database
%SYSINIT, waiting to form or join a VMScluster system
%MSCPLOAD-I-LOADMSCP, loading the MSCP disk server
%TMSCPLOAD-I-LOADTMSCP, loading the TMSCP tape server
%CNXMAN,  using local access method for quorum disk
%CNXMAN,  established "connection" to quorum disk
%CNXMAN,  have "connection" to quorum disk

Checking another system in my cluster, the hosts status still shows as BRK_NON.

I took the same backup over to a physical box (Ubuntu 16.04LTS), and it works 
just fine.  There also doesn’t appear to be any firewall in play.

I’m probably missing something obvious, any thoughts?

Zane



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Re: [Simh] Vax.exe emulator and Multinet network configuring

[Zane Healy]

Have you tried running over a wired connection, rather than a wireless 
connection?  You might also try running SIMH under a Linux VM.

Zane



> On May 9, 2019, at 7:00 AM, Jonathan Welch  wrote:
> 
> The vms systems on our campus are about to be shut down.  My former
> boss and I would like to still have access to our files, so I've moved
> an image of a vax system disk into simh.
> 
> He is a networking expert and I am no slouch, but neither of us can
> figure out why we cannot establish any kind of network connection
> outside of the simh.
> 
> I've looked back in the archives for help but have only found people
> with linux systems or messages of success with UCX.
> 
> This morning I upgraded from Multinet 4.3 to 5.2 and tried to set up
> DHCP but that did not work either.
> 
> Npcap is installed.
> 
> If I set my mac address to be the same as that of the host laptop I
> can use wireshark to see pings coming out from the vax but there are
> no responses.
> 
> I've disabled decnet from starting up to avoid the mac address from
> being changed.
> 
> Some guidance in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> --
> 
> From my vax.ini file:
> set xq mac=08-24-d7-ca-1f-40
> att xq eth3
> 
> From the simh prompt:
> sim> sho eth
> ETH devices:
> eth0   \Device\NPF_{8E7FBCD3-67EB-4A59-8E35-6713CAB729FA} (Local Area
> Connection 2)
> eth1   \Device\NPF_{EE67D248-AACC-4A29-99EE-2B84EA08B5EF} (VMware
> Network Adapter VMnet8)
> eth2   \Device\NPF_{7287895B-5B94-43ED-8AA8-1FF910EA836B} (Wireless
> Network Connection 2)
> eth3   \Device\NPF_{DC3CD7F8-4BD9-4610-B8DF-20AC5FBD56FC} (Wireless
> Network Connection)
> eth4   \Device\NPF_NdisWanIp  (NdisWan Adapter)
> eth5   \Device\NPF_NdisWanBh  (NdisWan Adapter)
> eth6   \Device\NPF_{B1392056-6E69-421B-9814-6011441195C2} (Wireless
> Network Connection 3)
> eth7   \Device\NPF_NdisWanIpv6(NdisWan Adapter)
> eth8   \Device\NPF_{C7140267-68CB-485A-B343-5751B1865242} (VMware
> Network Adapter VMnet1)
> eth9   \Device\NPF_{795E27CA-60AA-4A1E-AAB0-99FB62537868} (Npcap
> Loopback Adapter)
> eth10  \Device\NPF_{62CD8A59-7E13-401A-90AB-3CFBC37554E8} (Local Area
> Connection)
> eth11  nat:{optional-nat-parameters}  (Integrated
> NAT (SLiRP) support)
> eth12  udp:sourceport:remotehost:remoteport   (Integrated
> UDP bridge support)
> Npcap version 0.994, based on libpcap version 1.9.1-PRE-GIT
> Open ETH Devices:
> XQ eth3 (Wireless Network Connection)
> Ethernet Device:
>  Name:\Device\NPF_{DC3CD7F8-4BD9-4610-B8DF-20AC5FBD56FC}
>  Reflections: 1
>  Self Loopbacks Sent: 2
>  Self Loopbacks Rcvd: 2
>  Host NIC Address:00:24:D7:CA:1F:40
>  Packets Sent:2
>  Packets Received:26
>  Asynch Interrupts:   Disabled
>  Read Queue: Count:   24
>  Read Queue: High:24
>  Read Queue: Loss:0
>  Peak Write Queue Size:   0
>  BPF Filter: (((ether dst 08:24:D7:CA:1F:40) or (ether multicast)) and not 
> ((et
> her src 08:24:D7:CA:1F:40))) or ((ether dst 08:24:D7:CA:1F:40) and (ether src 
> 08
> :24:D7:CA:1F:40)) or ((ether dst 00:24:D7:CA:1F:40) and (ether proto 0x9000))
> sim>
> 
> Multinet settings
> MultiNet Network Configuration Utility V5.2(107)
> [Reading in MAXIMUM configuration from MULTINET:MULTINET.EXE]
> [Reading in configuration from MULTINET:NETWORK_DEVICES.CONFIGURATION]
> NET-CONFIG>sho
> InterfaceAdapter CSR Address
> Flags/Vector
> ---- ---
> 
> se0  (Shared VMS Ethernet/FDDI)   -NONE--NONE-   -NONE-
>  [TCP/IP: 10.0.0.150, IP-SubNet: 255.255.255.0, IP-Broadcast:
> 10.0.0.255]
>  [VMS Device: XQA0, Link Level: Ethernet ]
>  DHCP Client for the interface is enabled
> 
> 
> Official Host Name: vax1
> Default IP Route:   10.0.0.1
> Domain Nameserver:  127.0.0.1
> Timezone:   EST
> Timezone Rules: US/EASTERN
> Load UCX $QIO driver:   TRUE
> Load PWIP (Pathworks) driver:   TRUE
> DHCP Client Flag:   1
> NET-CONFIG>
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Re: [Simh] PDP-6 and KA10 software kits

[Zane Healy]

> On May 5, 2019, at 3:22 AM, Lars Brinkhoff  wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm putting the cart way ahead of the horse here, but I'm wondering what
> software you want for the upcoming KA10 and PDP-6?
> 
> For the PDP-6, we have:
> 
> - Some early DEC Monitor (Cornwell has the details)
> - LISP (1966)
> - MIT Spacewar (1966 and 1975)
> - The MIT toolchain: MACDMP, DDT, TECO, MIDAS, STINK.
> 
> For the KA10, there could be rather full-featured images for TOPS-10 and
> ITS.  (Maybe TENEX and WAITS in the future.)

The PDP-6 list sounds good, is there any other software still available?  For 
the KA10, TENEX and WAITS would be the most interesting.

Zane




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Re: [Simh] More VAX Simulators

[Zane Healy]

> On May 1, 2019, at 3:16 PM, Matt Burke  wrote:
> 
> The first thing to note (if you haven't spotted it already) is that the
> simulators have been merged into the Simh master branch and a number of
> fixes have been applied. CD-ROM and tape drive support is now included
> along with fixes to the memory sizing for the M60 and VLC.

Thank you for posting the info, I’ll have to grab a current copy of the master 
branch, as I want to try this for a M60 I’m about to virtualize.  It would be 
nice to mirror the real hardware.

It may take me a bit of time to try it, May is one of those “crazy months” for 
me. :-)

Zane


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Re: [Simh] Imaging SCSI HD's

[Zane Healy]

> On Apr 21, 2019, at 9:30 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
> 
> On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 9:24 PM, Zane Healy wrote:
>> Thanks Jeremy, if I’m understanding what you’re saying correctly, I’m going 
>> to
>> feel really stupid.  Am I correct in reading this that I don’t have to boot 
>> into
>> Standalone Backup, in order to backup the system disk?  I’ve thought that
>> was a requirement for cloning a drive for well over 20 years.
> 
> $ BACKUP/IMAGE/IGNORE=INTERLOCK   sys$sysdevice:   backup$disk:backup.sav/save
> 
> Will always work.  A hand full of files might not get every bit of their 
> contents backed up, but they are insignificant (open log files 
> (OPERATOR.LOG), etc.)
> 
> - Mark

Thanks Mark, I restarted the copy with /ignore=interlock, it should be done 
long before I get up in the morning.  I’ve rarely been so happy to feel so 
stupid. :-)

Zane


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Re: [Simh] Imaging SCSI HD's

[Zane Healy]

Thanks Jeremy, if I’m understanding what you’re saying correctly, I’m going to 
feel really stupid.  Am I correct in reading this that I don’t have to boot 
into Standalone Backup, in order to backup the system disk?  I’ve thought that 
was a requirement for cloning a drive for well over 20 years.

The copy is running.

Thanks,
Zane




> On Apr 21, 2019, at 9:09 PM, Jeremy Begg  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Juust noticed I may have got your DKA100 and DKA200 around the wrong way,
> but the mechanism is still a useful one to know.
> 
>   Jeremy
> 
>>> One of the main systems that I want to Virtualize is a VAXstation 4000/60
>>> with a BA350 shelf.  The only HD connected to the system is a RZ28-VA SBB
>>> (2GB) as DKA200:, so yesterday I added a RZ29-VA SBB (4GB) as DKA100:.  I
>>> setup Standalone Backup on the RZ29 and booted into Standalone backup.
> 
>> Does your VAXstation/60 boot from the RZ28?  Does it run VMS 7.3?
>> If so, you might like to try this instead:
> 
>> 1. If you don't have it installed on your VAXstation already, download and
>>  install LDdriver from https://www.digiater.nl/downloads/lddriver_v83.zip
> 
>>  LDdriver implements a VMS disk driver mapped to a VMS flat file, a sort
>>  of "virtual disk" utility.
> 
>> 2. Start LDdriver ... $ @SYS$STARTUP:LD$STARTUP
> 
>> 3. If you haven't already done so, connect your 4GB drive to the VAXstation
>>  and initialise and mount it, e.g.
>> $ INIT/SYS DKA200: BIGDISK
>> $ MOUNT/SYS DKA200: BIGDISK
> 
>> 4. Create a virtual disk the same size as your DKA100 drive, or bigger:
>> $ LD CREATE DKA200:[00]DKA100_IMAGE.DSK /SIZE=4213968
>>  will create a 2GB container file.
> 
>> 5. Then prepare it:
>> $ LD CONNECT DKA200:[00]DKA100_IMAGE.DSK LDA1
>> $ INIT/SYS LDA1: VAXDISK
>> $ MOUNT/FOREIGN LDA1:
>> $ BACKUP/IMAGE DKA100: LDA1:/INIT
> 
>> 6. Dismount and disconnect the LD disk
>> $ DISMOUNT LDA1:
>> $ LD DISCO LDA1:
> 
>> 7. Transfer the disk image file DKA200:[00]DKA100_IMAGE.DSK
>>  to your SIMH host, e.g. via FTP in BINARY mode.
> 
>> The disk image created by LD and transferred to your SIMH host is ready for
>> use by SIMH.
> 
>> Regards,
> 
>>  Jeremy Begg
> 
> 
>>> I tried to run the following:
>>> backup/image/verify dka200: dka100:[00]20190420-system.sav/sav
>>> 
>>> I ended up with a very strange "No valid storage bitmap found" error, and it
>>> failed to copy anything.
>>> 
>>> Facility: BACKUP, Backup Utility
>>> Explanation: Software bad block data is not present on the volume. The
>>> volume has been initialized with no bad blocks.
>>> User Action: Execute the Bad Block Locator utility before using the volume.
>>> NOBITMAP, no valid storage bitmap found on 'device-name'
>>> 
>>> I tried ANALYZE/MEDIA, but may not have been doing things right.  This is a
>>> Genuine RZ29-VA, but it was originally used as part of a disk array for a 
>>> Sun
>>> Sparc system.
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Re: [Simh] Imaging SCSI HD's

[Zane Healy]

Thanks for jogging my mind, it’s been a long time since I’ve done something 
like this.  I should be able to come up with larger SCSI drives in each of 
these cases.

This thread has also got me thinking, and I need to try and find my notes for 
how I was imaging RL01 and RL02 disk packs on my VAXen 20+ years ago (for use 
in SIMH).  I was doing that under VMS, probably 5.5-2 or 7.2, and able to go 
both to and from a disk pack.  

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted the procedure for the disk packs, but can’t find it 
online.  The real joke is I’ve apparently done this in the past with SCSI 
drives and dd, as I found a message from me, 14 years ago, advising someone to 
do something like the following:

dd if=/dev/sda0 ibs=512 obs=512 of=/tmp/vax_image.dsk

Zane




> On Apr 21, 2019, at 5:52 PM, Clem Cole  wrote:
> 
> I love Mark's solution in the theory, but the systems I have that continue to 
> have solid SCSI support don't have a copy of simh, nor enough local disk for 
> the output.   What I have done in the past is something on the order of:
> 
> dd if=/dev/RSCSI_DISK ibs=VERY_LARGE obs=4k conv=sync | ssh 
> remote_sys dd of=/tmp/vdisk.dsk ibs=4k obs=VERY_LARGE
> 
> The reason for the obs=4k is to keep the network block size under control.   
> Depending on source and destination.   Blocking then becomes what is right 
> for the system (on something like a Vax or early x86 based bus maps, they can 
> only do 64K bytes of DMA at a time even if the host has more memory, so even 
> if you put a larger block, it's not clear you will get much more speed up, 
> and the OS how to clear our memory for the I/O, so it becomes a trade off -- 
> i.e. YMMV)
> 
> Now I have a/couple of different version(s) of dd I dug up/rewrote years ago 
> called ddd - double dd  (before gnu's Debugger existed BTW).  The original 
> ddd used to UNIX processes the swap back and forth controlled via a pipe (you 
> can find it in the UUNET archives I want to say around 1985), but my newer 
> versions used can use threads of some sort if the local UNIX supports MxN 
> user mode threading, or async I/O is that was supported as the threading 
> overlap tends to be more efficient in the kernel itself, but the idea is the 
> same - you want as much I/O overlapped as possible.   [I originally did this 
> to fully stream tape drives in the bad old days of a 10Mhz 68000 are the 
> processor.  We ran:  dump -f - | ddd of=/dev/rmt0 ibs=20b obs=64k ].
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Re: [Simh] Imaging SCSI HD's

[Zane Healy]

This was supposed to go out well before my last email, I thought it went out 
hours ago, and just realized I’d not sent it.  The hazards of doing too many 
things today.

> On Apr 21, 2019, at 2:36 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
> 
> On Sunday, April 21, 2019 at 11:28 AM, Zane Healy wrote:
>> I have a DL380 on the way to add to my ESXI cluster here at home.  As a 
>> result
>> I’m looking to finish virtualizing my DEC HW.  What is the best way to 
>> convert
>> a physical SCSI HD to a disk image for SIMH?  I need to do this for both VAX
>> and PDP-11.
> 
> If these are SCSI disks, AND you have a host system with a SCSI host adapter 
> that can connect to these disks (i.e. it is the correct SCSI width, and 
> type), 
> then you can do this directly using simh from the host system.

Okay, I thought that might be possible, but I wasn’t sure.  This is venturing 
into areas that I’ve never messed with, with any of the DEC emulation software.

> Warning: If  you try to do this under some complicated set of layered 
> virtual systems, then you are on your own (recall your VNC experience).

Reading up more on SDL2, I don’t think virtualization was the issue, rather my 
lack of understanding as to what LibSDL2 provides.

> Depending on your host system the OS will have some name for the 
> above mentioned SCSI disk(s) which you've connected.  
> When you connect these disks to the host system, BE SURE not to 
> perform any action on these drives BEFORE you let simh see them.
> Be sure you identify the raw device name that the OS sees the newly
> connected SCSI disks as.  Knowing that name the following should work
> with a VAX or PDP11 simulator.  Note that this will probably have to 
> be done as root in order to access the physical devices.
> 
>   # vax
>   sim> ATTACH RQ0 -c  disk1.vhd
>   sim> DETACH RQ0
> 
> This will produce a "disk1.vhd" container file with all of the bits that can 
> be read from the original SCSI disk.
> Repeat as necessary for each original disk. 

Interesting, I may be better off doing this with a SparcStation then, as I seem 
to remember the OBP would make ID’ing things easier.  In any case, this isn’t a 
quick fix.  I should have all the bits and pieces, but find them will likely be 
a challenge. 

>> One of the main systems that I want to Virtualize is a VAXstation 4000/60
>> with a BA350 shelf.  The only HD connected to the system is a RZ28-VA SBB
>> (2GB) as DKA200:, so yesterday I added a RZ29-VA SBB (4GB) as DKA100:.  I
>> setup Standalone Backup on the RZ29 and booted into Standalone backup.
>> 
>> I tried to run the following:
>> backup/image/verify dka200: dka100:[00]20190420-system.sav/sav
>> 
>> I ended up with a very strange “No valid storage bitmap found” error, and it
>> failed to copy anything.
>> 
>> Facility: BACKUP, Backup Utility
>> Explanation: Software bad block data is not present on the volume. The
>> volume has been initialized with no bad blocks.
>> User Action: Execute the Bad Block Locator utility before using the volume.
>> NOBITMAP, no valid storage bitmap found on 'device-name’
>> 
>> I tried ANALYZE/MEDIA, but may not have been doing things right.  This is a
>> Genuine RZ29-VA, but it was originally used as part of a disk array for a Sun
>> Sparc system.
> 
> This exercise will merely put a backup saveset on another disk which I don't 
> see getting you very far towards making it accessible from simh.

I should be able to then transfer the resulting file over to a SIMH/VAX disk, 
boot up SIMH in StandAlone Backup, and restore it.

(I’ve now verified this works for an Alpha).

> Meanwhile, I suspect you are seeing a failure under standalone backup due 
> to the fact that after you added the DKA100 disk drive to the system you 
> didn't initialize the disk.  You can't initialize a target disk under 
> standalone
> backup, so you'll have to do that with full VMS running before you attempt
> the backup again.

I wish it were this simple.  The disk was already initialized before I 
installed it, though oddly enough, unused (so I’m not sure what I’d previously 
intended it for).  In addition I did an INIT on it from VAX/VMS 5.5-2, and I 
did it an INIT a second time on an installation of StandAlone Backup.

I’m not sure if I’m running into a VAX/VMS 5.5-2 bug, or a problem with the 
destination Hard Drive.  I need to try a different RZ29-VA drive.

Zane





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Re: [Simh] Imaging SCSI HD's

[Zane Healy]

> On Apr 21, 2019, at 2:36 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
> 
>> I tried to run the following:
>> backup/image/verify dka200: dka100:[00]20190420-system.sav/sav
>> 
>> I ended up with a very strange “No valid storage bitmap found” error, and it
>> failed to copy anything.
>> 
>> Facility: BACKUP, Backup Utility
>> Explanation: Software bad block data is not present on the volume. The
>> volume has been initialized with no bad blocks.
>> User Action: Execute the Bad Block Locator utility before using the volume.
>> NOBITMAP, no valid storage bitmap found on 'device-name’
>> 
>> I tried ANALYZE/MEDIA, but may not have been doing things right.  This is a
>> Genuine RZ29-VA, but it was originally used as part of a disk array for a Sun
>> Sparc system.
> 
> This exercise will merely put a backup saveset on another disk which I don't 
> see getting you very far towards making it accessible from simh.

I tested this out on an Alpha (XP1000/667), and it appears to work just fine.

backup/image/verify dka200: dka100:[00]20190420-system.sav/sav
backup/image/verify dka100:[00]20190420-system.sav/sav dka300:

I was then able to boot dka300:

I just have to figure out what the problem with the VAXstation 4000/60 is.

Zane
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[Simh] Imaging SCSI HD's

[Zane Healy]

I have a DL380 on the way to add to my ESXI cluster here at home.  As a result 
I’m looking to finish virtualizing my DEC HW.  What is the best way to convert 
a physical SCSI HD to a disk image for SIMH?  I need to do this for both VAX 
and PDP-11.

One of the main systems that I want to Virtualize is a VAXstation 4000/60 with 
a BA350 shelf.  The only HD connected to the system is a RZ28-VA SBB (2GB) as 
DKA200:, so yesterday I added a RZ29-VA SBB (4GB) as DKA100:.  I setup 
Standalone Backup on the RZ29 and booted into Standalone backup.

I tried to run the following:
backup/image/verify dka200: dka100:[00]20190420-system.sav/sav

I ended up with a very strange “No valid storage bitmap found” error, and it 
failed to copy anything.

Facility: BACKUP, Backup Utility 
Explanation: Software bad block data is not present on the volume. The volume 
has been initialized with no bad blocks. 
User Action: Execute the Bad Block Locator utility before using the volume.
NOBITMAP, no valid storage bitmap found on 'device-name’

I tried ANALYZE/MEDIA, but may not have been doing things right.  This is a 
Genuine RZ29-VA, but it was originally used as part of a disk array for a Sun 
Sparc system.

My one thought is to see if any of the old Sun hardware I have around here will 
power up (I haven’t touched any of them in a decade or more), and to use ‘dd’ 
to image the Hard Drives.  Actually at that point, it would probably make more 
sense to bring up an AlphaStation 200 4/233 running UNIX temporarily, as I want 
to convert one of my two into an OpenVMS Workstation.  I need to see if either 
of them run, as like the Sun HW, it’s been over a decade.

Thoughts/suggestions?

Zane



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Re: [Simh] More VAX Simulators

[Zane Healy]

> On Apr 21, 2019, at 1:44 AM, Matt Burke  wrote:
> 
> I managed to get a working configuration using the images from the
> freeware. I've written up the procedure here:
> 
> http://www.9track.net/simh/infoserver
> 
> The target disk must be DKA100 and you need to set the boot flags to
> D000 so that it boots from the [SYSD] system root.
> 
> Matt

Thanks, that did the trick!  Now to learn how to use it. :-)

Zane



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Re: [Simh] More VAX Simulators

[Zane Healy]

> On Apr 20, 2019, at 12:56 AM, Matt Burke  wrote:
> 
> On 20/04/2019 01:13, Zane Healy wrote:
>> Very exciting!  Especially the InfoServer support, and potentially very 
>> timely for what I am planning to do this weekend.  Does the InfoServer 
>> simulation support backing up a system disk on a VAX or Alpha to InfoServer 
>> tape?  Actually does it even support tape?
>> https://www.itec.suny.edu/scsys/vms/ovmsdoc073/v73/6017/6017pro_051.html#info_ex
>> 
>> Also, I assume I need to use the images found here?
>> ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/openvms/freeware/infoserver/freeware_readme.txt
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Zane
>> 
> 
> There is some preliminary support for SCSI tape but only basic reading
> commands have been implemented so far. You could backup to an InfoServer
> disk though. One other thing to take note of is that I've found the
> LANCE Ethernet to be a bit slow compared to real hardware. This might be
> because the operating system does not notify the controller when there
> are new packets to be transmitted. Instead the controller has to check
> for new packets on each poll interval. This can result in a delay up to
> 20mS between packets whereas on real hardware it's more like 2mS.
> 
> Yes, the images from the freeware are the ones you need. It's been a
> while since I last did the installation but I seem to remember something
> about devices having to be at specific SCSI IDs. I'll have to experiment.
> 
> Matt

So far I’ve been trying ‘vax412’ with the various images at DKA0 and DKA100 
(the two drives listed when you do a “SHOW BOOT” from the ROM prompt.  At this 
point I fear a sample .ini file may help. :-)

Looking at the strings at the beginning of each disk, I’m starting to wonder if 
any are actually bootable.  I see that a couple say "is not a system disk”, and 
the rest say “IS_KEY_DISK”, so I’m wondering if any are bootable, even though 
it seems like I should be using InfoServer/VMS V3.5 (ag-r7lfa-bs.img), which 
says, "IS_V35  is not a system disk”.

Zane




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Re: [Simh] More VAX Simulators

[Zane Healy]

Very exciting!  Especially the InfoServer support, and potentially very timely 
for what I am planning to do this weekend.  Does the InfoServer simulation 
support backing up a system disk on a VAX or Alpha to InfoServer tape?  
Actually does it even support tape?
https://www.itec.suny.edu/scsys/vms/ovmsdoc073/v73/6017/6017pro_051.html#info_ex

Also, I assume I need to use the images found here?
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/openvms/freeware/infoserver/freeware_readme.txt

Thanks,
Zane




> On Apr 19, 2019, at 2:37 PM, Matt Burke  wrote:
> 
> I've put my vax4xx (VAX Workstations) branch online which is a series of
> VAX simulators that are based on a similar architecture. This originally
> started as the MicroVAX/VAXstation 2000 simulator that I release back in
> 2011, but it has been developed substantially since then to include more
> feature and another 11 models of VAX. The list now includes:
> 
> MicroVAX/VAXststion 2000
> InfoServer 100
> InfoServer 150 VXT
> MicroVAX 3100 M10/M20
> MicroVAX 3100 M10e/M20e
> VAXstation 3100 M30
> VAXstation 3100 M38
> VAXstation 3100 M76
> VAXstation 4000 M60
> MicroVAX 3100 M80
> VAXstation 4000 VLC
> InfoServer 1000
> 
> Several new devices have been developed to support these simulations
> which include:
> 
> (rd) HDC9224 MFM disk controller
> (rz) NCR5380 SCSI controller
> (rz) NCR53C94 SCSI controller
> (xs) LANCE Ethernet controller
> (vc) Monochrome video controller
> (va) GPX video option (partly working)
> (ve) SPX video option (work in progress)
> 
> This branch is still under development. The lists above are more or less
> in order in terms of how fully developed they are. The MicroVAX 2000 is
> pretty much complete whereas the VAXstation 4000 M60 lacks video, sound
> etc. but is still usable.
> 
> The code is available from:
> 
> https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/vax4xx
> 
> Windows executables are available at:
> 
> http://www.9track.net/simh/vax4xx/
> 
> Please try them out and let me know if you have any questions.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Matt
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Re: [Simh] VCB02 Released

[Zane Healy]

I borrowed the laptop my one son uses, it’s running Ubuntu 16.04, and the 
microvax2 emulator with VCB02 support seems to work well.  One bit of oddness, 
I logged in and some letters weren’t right, logged out of the session, and then 
back in and everything was fine.  I’m going to have fun with this when I can 
really find some time to play!  This is seriously cool!

Zane 


Sent from my iPod

> On Apr 14, 2019, at 1:40 PM, Zane Healy  wrote:
> 
> Initial attempts to run this haven’t been great, but I think that’s largely 
> due to how I’m trying to run it.
> 
> I have a “workstation” VM running under ESXI.  It’s running OpenSUSE 15, and 
> I connect to it from my Mac via a copy of the commercial RealVNC client on my 
> Mac.  If I don’t use ‘set qdss capture’ and set qdss enabled’ in my SIMH ini 
> file for the VAXstation II, the VCB01 and VCB02 emulation appears to work 
> just fine.  The VCB01 emulation for the MicroVAX 3900 is a mess (lots of the 
> text is blacked out).  While the emulation appears to work fine, and the 
> keyboard input is working, the mouse isn’t tracking right.  SIMH is running 
> VAX/VMS 5.5 for these tests.
> 
> If I use ‘set qdss capture’ and set qdss enabled’, it doesn’t take any mouse 
> input once the window has control of the mouse, and I can’t release the 
> mouse.  I have to go in on another Linux session and kill the microvax2 
> process.
> 
> Next up, attempt to run this on a laptop running Ubuntu, though it will 
> likely be a while before I can attempt that.  My guess is that the 
> interaction with VNC is giving me problems.
> 
> Zane
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Apr 6, 2019, at 10:03 AM, Matt Burke  wrote:
>> 
>> The long awaited VCB02 (colour graphics adapter) for VAX has now been
>> released. It hasn't been merged into the Simh master branch yet but for
>> now you can get the code from:
>> 
>> https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/VCB02
>> 
>> If you need a Windows executable then that's available here:
>> 
>> http://www.9track.net/simh/vax630
>> 
>> Here is the current status for the graphical environments that I've tested:
>> 
>> DECwindows - All OK as far as I can tell.
>> VWS - Works but leaves trails on the screen if you drag a window.
>> UWS - Works but certain visual elements such as window icons are
>> missing. Also I'm not sure the colours a are quite right. I will have to
>> test this on a real VAX to check.
>> 
>> Only captured input mode is currently supported. This must be set before
>> enabling the device.
>> 
>> sim> set qdss capture
>> sim> set qdss enabled
>> 
>> The VCB02 has only been added to the MicroVAX II simulator so far
>> (VAXstation II/GPX). I know there have been some discussions previously
>> about the MicroVAX 3900 supporting the VCB02 though I've not had success
>> with that yet.
>> 
>> 
>> Matt
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Re: [Simh] VCB02 Released

[Zane Healy]

Initial attempts to run this haven’t been great, but I think that’s largely due 
to how I’m trying to run it.

I have a “workstation” VM running under ESXI.  It’s running OpenSUSE 15, and I 
connect to it from my Mac via a copy of the commercial RealVNC client on my 
Mac.  If I don’t use ‘set qdss capture’ and set qdss enabled’ in my SIMH ini 
file for the VAXstation II, the VCB01 and VCB02 emulation appears to work just 
fine.  The VCB01 emulation for the MicroVAX 3900 is a mess (lots of the text is 
blacked out).  While the emulation appears to work fine, and the keyboard input 
is working, the mouse isn’t tracking right.  SIMH is running VAX/VMS 5.5 for 
these tests.

If I use ‘set qdss capture’ and set qdss enabled’, it doesn’t take any mouse 
input once the window has control of the mouse, and I can’t release the mouse.  
I have to go in on another Linux session and kill the microvax2 process.

Next up, attempt to run this on a laptop running Ubuntu, though it will likely 
be a while before I can attempt that.  My guess is that the interaction with 
VNC is giving me problems.

Zane




> On Apr 6, 2019, at 10:03 AM, Matt Burke  wrote:
> 
> The long awaited VCB02 (colour graphics adapter) for VAX has now been
> released. It hasn't been merged into the Simh master branch yet but for
> now you can get the code from:
> 
> https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/VCB02
> 
> If you need a Windows executable then that's available here:
> 
> http://www.9track.net/simh/vax630
> 
> Here is the current status for the graphical environments that I've tested:
> 
> DECwindows - All OK as far as I can tell.
> VWS - Works but leaves trails on the screen if you drag a window.
> UWS - Works but certain visual elements such as window icons are
> missing. Also I'm not sure the colours a are quite right. I will have to
> test this on a real VAX to check.
> 
> Only captured input mode is currently supported. This must be set before
> enabling the device.
> 
> sim> set qdss capture
> sim> set qdss enabled
> 
> The VCB02 has only been added to the MicroVAX II simulator so far
> (VAXstation II/GPX). I know there have been some discussions previously
> about the MicroVAX 3900 supporting the VCB02 though I've not had success
> with that yet.
> 
> 
> Matt
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Re: [Simh] VAXClustering with Linux Desktops?

[Zane Healy]

 
> On Apr 12, 2019, at 5:53 PM, Ray Jewhurst  wrote:
> 
> I have seen articles everywhere setting a VAXCluster using SimH and Raspberry 
> Pis but none with Linux desktops.  I am putting together a small network of 3 
> or four Linux machines and thought it would be kind of neat to put together a 
> small cluster and maybe even join Hecnet with it.  Anyway I am kind of a VMS 
> noob (only been using it for about 4 years) and would appreciate any guidance 
> I can get.  The network is simple.  4 machines hooked up to a switch and then 
> the switch is attached to my cable modem/router. All, IP's are static as well.

You’ll get better speeds out of old PC’s running Linux, than out of RPi’s.  I 
have an RPi2, a Linux VM running on an ESXI Host, and a Linux Server hosting 
SIMH instances for my VMS cluster.  Then there is a real Alpha in the cluster 
as well.  My fastest “VAX” is the ESXI host.  I’m still running a VAXstation 
4000/60 as my DECnet router, but plan to move it to a VM at some point.  SIMH 
VAX instances are a fantastic way to add cheap storage to a VMS Cluster with 
real VMS hardware in it.

I’m currently trying to figure out what I want to try the new VAXstation II 
VCB02 emulation on.  Leaning towards using on a Linux laptop.

Zane




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Re: [Simh] VCB02 Released

[Zane Healy]

This is really good news, thank you.  This is something I’ve been wanting to 
play with.  I’ve used DECwindows quite a bit on my Alpha’s, but never on my 
VAXen.  I have (at least I think I still have it), a VAXstation II/RC with the 
monochrome monitor, but never got VMS going on it, as I ended up with a 
MicroVAX II, and then quickly a VAXstation 3100.

There are some VAX/VMS 5.5-2 era things that I want to give a try.

Zane



> On Apr 6, 2019, at 10:03 AM, Matt Burke  wrote:
> 
> The long awaited VCB02 (colour graphics adapter) for VAX has now been
> released. It hasn't been merged into the Simh master branch yet but for
> now you can get the code from:
> 
> https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/VCB02
> 
> If you need a Windows executable then that's available here:
> 
> http://www.9track.net/simh/vax630
> 
> Here is the current status for the graphical environments that I've tested:
> 
> DECwindows - All OK as far as I can tell.
> VWS - Works but leaves trails on the screen if you drag a window.
> UWS - Works but certain visual elements such as window icons are
> missing. Also I'm not sure the colours a are quite right. I will have to
> test this on a real VAX to check.
> 
> Only captured input mode is currently supported. This must be set before
> enabling the device.
> 
> sim> set qdss capture
> sim> set qdss enabled
> 
> The VCB02 has only been added to the MicroVAX II simulator so far
> (VAXstation II/GPX). I know there have been some discussions previously
> about the MicroVAX 3900 supporting the VCB02 though I've not had success
> with that yet.
> 
> 
> Matt
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Re: [Simh] some performance issues

[Zane Healy]

I have to wonder if a lightweight Linux disto, that has been locked down, 
running on a Core i7 might not give better SIMH performance.  My *old* i7 ESXI 
box provides a faster “VAX” than my VAXstation 4000/60.

What is the reason for running on Itanium?

Zane



> On Mar 6, 2019, at 1:57 AM, Pontus Pihlgren  wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> I'm having trouble understanding your question. Are 
> you comparing CPU-time of a real VAX(which model?) to 
> emulated CPU-time on an Itanium machine(which one?).
> 
> Emulation will have an associated overhead. If you 
> are compareing a fast VAX to an emulation on a slow 
> Itanium... well, Itanium is hard to optimize for.
> 
> /P
> 
> On Tue, Mar 05, 2019 at 03:13:53PM +0100, gérard Calliet wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> Again I have some performance issues with simh.
>> 
>> I built it  on OpenVMS Itanium. It runs on a process with enought
>> memory, it takes 1 of the 8 CPU Itanium with 100%, no page faults,
>> and 100 BIO by second.
>> 
>> On the emulated VAX we are running processes CPU intensive (old Ada
>> compiler), they take 100% of the CPU, also very few page fault, very
>> few IO.
>> 
>> And the CPU time is about 2 or 3 times the CPU time on the hardware,
>> and so elapsed time 3 or 4 times. (For my understanding, it is
>> difficult to think the same stream of instructions can use different
>> CPU times between hardware and SIMH).
>> 
>> Where can I do something to improve performance? Are there
>> parameters (or constant in compilation) in SIMH which could help?
>> And the specific context is processes doing almost only CPU
>> computing.
>> 
>> 
>> my configuration, and what commit I use
>> on error continue
>> load -r ka655x.bin
>> attach NVR ka655.nvr
>> set cpu 512m
>> set cpu conhalt
>> set RL disable
>> set LPT disable
>> set TQ disable
>> set -L rq0 rauser=1800
>> attach rq0 datauser2.dsk
>> set xq mac=08-00-2B-3C-96-75
>> attach xq eth0
>> dep bdr 0
>> b cpu
>> 
>> 
>> $ run vax-i64
>> MicroVAX 3900 simulator V4.0-0 Betagit commit id: 8810571d
>> sim>
>> 
>> 
 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Gérard Calliet
>> 
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Re: [Simh] Connecting SimH to a Network Printer

[Zane Healy]

What OS are you running under SIMH?  I’m able to send prints from OpenVMS 
running on SIMH, to my HP LaserJet.

Unfortunately I forget how I had it setup for TOPS-10.  

Zane 


Sent from my iPod

> On Jan 26, 2019, at 3:25 PM, Robert W.Mills  wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Is it possible to attach a network printer to a SimH line printer device
> on Linux?
> 
> At the moment I am having to do the following:
> 
> 1) attach -n lp filename1
> 2) run the program that generates printed output
> 3) attach -n lp filename2
> 4) !lpr filename1
> 
> Would be nice to just run the program and have it automatically print
> when it finishes.
> 
> In case it helps I have attached the lpoptions output.
> 
> Robert
> 
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Re: [Simh] SCSI-Interface for simh-vax?

[Zane Healy]

> On Sep 1, 2018, at 12:28 PM, Clem Cole  wrote:
> 
> below...
> 
> On Sat, Sep 1, 2018 at 2:39 PM Zane Healy  <mailto:heal...@avanthar.com>> wrote:
> Create a virtual disk in SIMH the size of the CD-R blank.  Prep the disk, 
> then burn it to CD-R.  This is how I created my bootable CD’s for RT-11 and 
> RSX-11M+.  I’ve then used those CD’s to do installs on my PDP-11/73.  I 
> wasn’t able to figure out how to make it work in RSTS/E.  I could create the 
> CD-R, but not boot and install RSTS/E from it.
> 
> Just curious ... aren't there funnies because CD's are normally 1024 byte 
> blocks and disks are usually 512?IIRC, there are places that store 
> numbers of blocks (not bytes), and you have to be careful.I have >>not<< 
> played in any of that in years.   
> 
> IIRC one of things  we might have done at DEC was mess with the block size on 
> a CD -- that's a Tim Litt type question.   Those bits are so long ago 
> depreciated/garbage collected in my acitve brain cells. ;-)
> ᐧ

I’ve not run into any issues, but come to think of it, the SCSI CD-ROM drive 
attached to my PDP-11/73 is capable of 512-byte blocks.  IIRC, the older DEC 
HW, just like the older Sun HW requires 512-byte blocks.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] SCSI-Interface for simh-vax?

[Zane Healy]

Create a virtual disk in SIMH the size of the CD-R blank.  Prep the disk, then 
burn it to CD-R.  This is how I created my bootable CD’s for RT-11 and 
RSX-11M+.  I’ve then used those CD’s to do installs on my PDP-11/73.  I wasn’t 
able to figure out how to make it work in RSTS/E.  I could create the CD-R, but 
not boot and install RSTS/E from it.

Zane





> On Sep 1, 2018, at 10:45 AM, Eberhard Heuser 
>  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Are there any plans to add a SCSI-Interface to the VAX-code?
> 
> I want to add the CD-R burning capability but there is no interface
> (SCSI or IDE) that allows to communicate on the diagnose level
> with an CD-drive.
> 
> I have seen that one can access a physical CD-drive but only through
> the pudriver and not via the pkdriver.
> 
> regards
> Eberhard
> 
> ---
> Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprüft.
> https://www.avast.com/antivirus
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Re: [Simh] Trying to install openvms 7.3 over a Beta install of openvms k7.2

[Zane Healy]

If this is under SIMH, simply create a image of the CD, and mount that under 
SIMH.  

Zane



> On Aug 7, 2018, at 3:52 PM, Jeremy Begg  wrote:
> 
> Hi Jim,
> 
> With only 64218 free blocks on the system disk you might run into problems 
> upgrading VMS regardless of where the savesets live.
> 
> You could put them in the TLD of another disk.
> You can delete the savesets after the upgrade is complete.
> 
> Jeremy
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On 8 Aug 2018, at 8:17 am, James W. Laferriere  
>> wrote:
>> 
>>   Hello Jeremy ,
>> 
>> On Tue, 7 Aug 2018, Jeremy Begg wrote:
>> ...snip...
   I Very vaugely remember a document that came with the Field Test kit
 that gave me a hint that it was possible to "Upgrade" from the K7.2 to the
 production version of 7.2 after the field testing was completed .
   And of course that document is either extrememly buried or gone .
>>> 
>>> If I recall correctly, to do a VMS upgrade on VAX you put the VMS kit
>>> savesets somewhere easily found (e.g. top level directory of the VMS system
>>> disk) then run
>>> 
>>> $ @SYS$UPDATE:VMSINSTAL VMS073 DUA0:[00]
>>> 
>>> (assuming your kit savesets are VMS073.A, VMS073.B, etc and DUA0:[00] is
>>> where you put them).
>>> 
>>> It's possible to tell VMSINSTAL to pause the installation so that you can
>>> make changes to the kit:
>>> 
>>> $ @SYS$UPDATE:VMSINSTAL VMS073 DUA0:[00] OPTIONS RSP=A
>>> 
>>> This will tell VMSINSTAL to unpack the .A saveset and then it wait at a
>>> prompt.  Login from another terminal and edit the KITINSTAL.COM procedure
>>> which you will find in a newly-created subdirectory of SYS$UPDATE.
>>> 
>>> Somewhere in KITINSTAL.COM it will define the VMS version it is willing to
>>> ugprade from.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>>   Jeremy Begg
>> 
>>   Working on getting the savesets copied over ,  But dua0:[00] (*) 
>> contains critical files I'd really rather not pollute with the savesets .
>>   Would creating a subdirectory there work too ?  I do have another disk 
>> (well disk file in simh) available I could use if that could work ?
>> 
>>   Tia ,  JimL
>> 
>> (*)
>> $ dir VAXX1$DUA0:[00] /size/date
>> 
>> Directory VAXX1$DUA0:[00]
>> 
>> 00.DIR;1   1  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> BACKUP.SYS;1   0  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> BADBLK.SYS;1   0  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> BADLOG.SYS;1   0  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> BITMAP.SYS;1 229  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> CONTIN.SYS;1   0  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> CORIMG.SYS;1   0  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> INDEXF.SYS;1   63981  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> SECURITY.SYS;1 1  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> SYS0.DIR;1 1  29-SEP-1998 10:28:01.01
>> SYSEXE.DIR;1   1  29-SEP-1998 10:28:27.45
>> TCPIP$FTP.DIR;11  22-JUL-2018 16:02:26.81
>> VMS$COMMON.DIR;1   3  29-SEP-1998 10:28:00.49
>> VOLSET.SYS;1   0  29-SEP-1998 10:27:56.56
>> 
>> Total of 14 files, 64218 blocks.
>> 
>> -- 
>> +--+
>> | James   W.   Laferriere | SystemTechniques | Give me VMS |
>> | Network&System Engineer | 3237 Holden Road |  Give me Linux  |
>> | bab...@baby-dragons.com | Fairbanks, AK. 99709 |   only  on  AXP |
>> +--+
> 
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Re: [Simh] VAX emulation issues on Raspberry Pi

[Zane Healy]

Don’t forget SIMH is emulating a lot more than just the CPU, it also has to 
emulate all the rest of the hardware that makes up a VAX.  

My Raspberry Pi 2 clocks in at about 1.6 VUPS, my ESXI host is a i7-3770 CPU @ 
3.40GHz (which is starved for RAM), SIMH/VAX on a VM running on it clocks in at 
about 34.6 VUPS.  I have a i5-3470 @ 3.2Ghz and SIMH runs at about 31.6 VUPS.  
If you have a top of the line, current i7, you might be able to get close to 
the speed of your VAXstation 4000/96.

I’ve been buying used HP SFF desktop boxes to use as servers, I pick them up 
used for almost nothing.  A few months ago, that i5 cost me $75, I think the i7 
was less than $200.  Wiped the drive, put Linux on it, and now the SIMH/VAX 
instance on it provides most of the storage for my VMS Cluster.

Right now most of my VMS environment at home has been replaced by emulation.  
Once I move PDXVAX off of a VAXstation 4000/60 (it’s my DECnet area router), 
I’ll be running a fully emulated environment.  Honestly it’s something of a 
relief.  Though I am considering looking into running one physical machine as a 
desktop, booting it into my cluster.  

Instead of starting SIMH like this:
$ ./vax < vax.ini
Try:
$ ./vax vax.ini

All my VMS systems are using Telnet right now, as I don’t have any VMS system 
running a modern version of SSH.  I’ve also not managed to get DECwindows to 
work right with any X-Windows on my current systems (it works fine with my SGI 
O2).  This is one of the reasons I’m considering running a physical VMS system 
as a desktop.

You bring up a very good point on the licensing though.  I’m not sure what to 
suggest there. :-(

Zane



> On Jul 30, 2018, at 3:57 PM, Jeremy Begg  wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> A while ago the power supply in my VAXstation 4000/96 died and rather than
> fix it I decided to move it to a Raspberry Pi 3.
> 
> The VAXstation has a 100MHz CPU and the RPi has a 1.2GHz CPU - about 120
> times faster.  Yet the performance of SIMH basically sucks, especially when
> logging in to the emulated VAX via SSH.
> 
> On the real VAXstation, establishing an SSH sesison was slow -- it would
> take the better part of a minute -- but once established it was very usable
> and quite capable of running a DECterm to an X11 display on a remote PC over
> an SSH tunnel.
> 
> On the Raspberry Pi the SSH session establishment takes several minutes and
> trying to run a DECterm is painful to say the least.  I was hoping that the
> RPi's much faster CPU would compensate for the emulation overhead,
> particularly on a very CPU-intensive task like SSH session establishment, so
> this result is rather disappointing.
> 
> I could perhaps put up with those issues but there two other, more
> fundamental problems when starting the simulation.
> 
> The first one is, the emulation can't be started automatically; I have
> to run it interactively in a terminal window.  If I try to automate the
> startup using, for example
> 
>   $ ./vax < vax.ini
> 
> the VAX console boot ROM fails a self test and refuses to boot into VMS.
> If I type the commands from vax.ini by hand, it works fine.
> 
> A similar issue occurs if I try to load the boot console NVR from a file:
> the VAX console boot ROM fails its self-test and won't boot VMS.
> 
> The second problem is that the simulated VAX is *always* a VAXserver 3900. 
> Trying to SET CPU MODEL=MicroVAX just doesn't work, so my VAX-VMS licence
> PAK's availability table code don't suit the machine any more.
> 
> The SIMH version is currently 
> 
>   MicroVAX 3900 simulator V4.0-0 Beta   git commit id: 733ac0d9
> 
> I tried downloading the latest from Github (git commit id: 8077d4de) but it
> didn't fix the startup issues so I haven't persisted with it.
> 
> Before starting this exercise I had read several reports of people
> successfullly using Raspberry Pi to run an emulated VAX so I have to think
> something is very broken in my RPi environment, but I'm not sure what I
> should be looking for.
> 
> FWIW the Raspberry Pi is running
> 
> Linux pieric 4.14.52-v7+ #1123 SMP Wed Jun 27 17:35:49 BST 2018 armv7l 
> GNU/Linux
> 
> and the file /etc/os-release is:
> 
> PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
> NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
> VERSION_ID="9"
> VERSION="9 (stretch)"
> ID=raspbian
> ID_LIKE=debian
> HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/";
> SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums";
> BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs";
> 
> SIMH was built with "gcc (Raspbian 6.3.0-18+rpi1+deb9u1) 6.3.0 20170516".
> Here is the full SHOW VERSION output:
> 
> sim> show version
> MicroVAX 3900 simulator V4.0-0 Beta
>Simulator Framework Capabilities:
>64b data
>64b addresses
>Threaded Ethernet Packet transports:PCAP:TAP:NAT:UDP
>Idle/Throttling support is available
>Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) support
>RAW disk and CD/DVD ROM support
>Asynchronous I/O support (Lock free asynchronous event queue)
>Asynchron

Re: [Simh] MicroVAX 3900 simulator fails BIST sometimes?

[Zane Healy]

Sounds like I’ve been lucky.  My main SIMH VAX uses a fairly current MicroVAX 
3900 build, mainly for virtual tape support, the others are using the prebuilt 
3.8 build available in Ubuntu and Raspian.

Zane


> On Jun 23, 2018, at 12:57 PM, Alan Frisbie  wrote:
> 
> So I'm not alone!   I have seen the same thing, but since it
> wasn't causing me any problems I didn't bother reporting it.
> 
> Alan Frisbie
> 
> On 06/23/2018 11:55 AM, Mark Pizzolato wrote:
> > This problem is not unique to you.  I have not been able to
> > reproduce the problem with enough debug information to track
> > down the details of the cause.  The problem report relates
> > to the boot ROM’s internal clock/timer diagnostic.  In all
> > of my test cases, with debug information being gathered,
> > Heisenberg effects mean that the problem is never seen.
> 
> > Robert Armstrong wrote
> > > I’ve found that on occasion the MicroVAX 3900 simh will fail
> > > the built in self test.   Just to be clear, this is the self
> > > test that’s in the MicroVAX-III EPROM image that’s failing;
> > > it’s not VMS.
> 
> 
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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

Tim,
Somewhere you misunderstood me.   The only 2GB limit I’ve found is that the 
documentation says the TQ emulation only supports tapes up to 2GB.

I have a 50GB drive, and I’ve created 27GB tapes.

My problem is with reading the SIMH tapes, over the cluster, from the Alpha.  I 
can read them just fine with SIMH.

Zane



> On Feb 21, 2018, at 4:03 AM, Tim Shoppa  wrote:
> 
> Is this possibly a host compiler switch or host OS or host file system issue? 
> The way Zane is hitting some limit at 2Gbytes for both emulated disks and 
> tapes sounds like the limits of 32 bit operating systems or file systems 
> using signed ints.
> 
> Tim
> 
>> On Feb 21, 2018, at 12:29 AM, Zane Healy  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On Feb 20, 2018, at 8:56 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
>>> 
>>> TQ limited to 2000GB means a limit of 2TB.  Do you have disks on the AXP 
>>> system 
>>> that big?
>> 
>> Unfortunately the 2000GB is a typo on my part.  A 2GB “tape" is too small 
>> for me, and has been for a long time.  From the documentation:
>> "User-specified capacity must be between 50 and 2000 MB. The TQK50 does not 
>> support the BOOT
>> command.”
>> 
>>> What happens if you merely backup a few hundred MB to the tape
>>> with /VERIFY?
>> 
>> I’m not sure, I’d thought about giving that a try.  Right now I’m going to 
>> focus on getting the data moved.
>> 
>>> The simh tape will have very different timing characteristics when 
>>> reading as compared to a real physical tape.  I would still recommend
>>> the TQ device since that I/O is asynch and isn't delaying instruction
>>> execution (and cluster timing activities) during data transfers.  The
>>> cluster exit may merely be due to timing on SCS messages.
>> 
>> I’ll see about testing that later.  While it’s not that practical to backup 
>> to 2GB tapes, it would be interesting to see if the problem exists in the TQ 
>> emulation.
>> 
>>>> End Result, I think I’m going to have to resort to the disk solution.
>>> 
>>> The disk solution has effectively similar limits (something just under 
>>> 2TB) is the maximum RQ disk size.
>> 
>> In this case, that’s not a problem.  I’m creating 36GB “disks".
>> 
>>> Meanwhile, you needn't worry about ODS-5 vs ODS-2.  You're
>>> driving the backup from the AXP side, and the VAX is merely serving 
>>> access to disk blocks (not files).  The VAX can address the full capacity
>>> of the disk.  Doing a BACKUP/IMAGE your target disk will be mounted
>>> /FOREIGN on the AXP side.  No problem there.  When you want to 
>>> access the contents of one of these target disks, once again you
>>> merely let the VAX serve up access to disk blocks and on the AXP
>>> side, you DON'T do a MOUNT/CLUSTER, but instead merely do a
>>> MOUNT and you'll be able to see the file system naturally on the 
>>> AXP side.
>> 
>> This I’m going to have to try.  I wouldn’t have thought of trying it, and it 
>> would definitely fulfill one of my goals with this project.
>> 
>> Zane
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 20, 2018, at 8:56 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
> 
> TQ limited to 2000GB means a limit of 2TB.  Do you have disks on the AXP 
> system 
> that big?

Unfortunately the 2000GB is a typo on my part.  A 2GB “tape" is too small for 
me, and has been for a long time.  From the documentation:
"User-specified capacity must be between 50 and 2000 MB. The TQK50 does not 
support the BOOT
command.”

> What happens if you merely backup a few hundred MB to the tape
> with /VERIFY?

I’m not sure, I’d thought about giving that a try.  Right now I’m going to 
focus on getting the data moved.

> The simh tape will have very different timing characteristics when 
> reading as compared to a real physical tape.  I would still recommend
> the TQ device since that I/O is asynch and isn't delaying instruction
> execution (and cluster timing activities) during data transfers.  The
> cluster exit may merely be due to timing on SCS messages.

I’ll see about testing that later.  While it’s not that practical to backup to 
2GB tapes, it would be interesting to see if the problem exists in the TQ 
emulation.

>> End Result, I think I’m going to have to resort to the disk solution.
> 
> The disk solution has effectively similar limits (something just under 
> 2TB) is the maximum RQ disk size.

In this case, that’s not a problem.  I’m creating 36GB “disks".

> Meanwhile, you needn't worry about ODS-5 vs ODS-2.  You're
> driving the backup from the AXP side, and the VAX is merely serving 
> access to disk blocks (not files).  The VAX can address the full capacity
> of the disk.  Doing a BACKUP/IMAGE your target disk will be mounted
> /FOREIGN on the AXP side.  No problem there.  When you want to 
> access the contents of one of these target disks, once again you
> merely let the VAX serve up access to disk blocks and on the AXP
> side, you DON'T do a MOUNT/CLUSTER, but instead merely do a
> MOUNT and you'll be able to see the file system naturally on the 
> AXP side.

This I’m going to have to try.  I wouldn’t have thought of trying it, and it 
would definitely fulfill one of my goals with this project.

Zane





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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 20, 2018, at 8:17 PM, Larry Baker  wrote:
> 
> You should be able to write an ODS-5 backup save set to an ODS-2 disk image 
> on your SIMH VAX.  It may help you decide whether the cluster I/O or the 
> virtual tape drive is the culprit crashing your VAX.  Make the VAX disk large 
> enough.  Cluster mount it.  Do the backup entirely from the Alpha using MSCP 
> I/O.
> 
> One thing I've never tried is to restore ODS-5 files to an ODS-2 disk.  Does 
> BACKUP give you some options to at least deal with renaming non-ODS-2 file 
> names?
> 
> Larry Baker
> US Geological Survey
> 650-329-5608
> ba...@usgs.gov 
I’m not sure what will happen if you try restore ODS-5 files to a ODS-2 disk.  
That’s something I’ve not tried.

Interesting, it wasn’t just the VAX that I crashed.  I just realized I also 
crashed the Alpha. 

Zane



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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 20, 2018, at 1:58 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
> 
> I would actually attribute the 'improved' behavior to the fact that tape I/O 
> to TQ 
> and XQ devices is asynchronous in the latest code.
> 
> I would seriously consider Mr Baker's suggestion of backing up to simh disks. 
>  Not to save sets, but to merely using VMS backup to perform BACKUP/Image to 
> RQ units attached to disk container files.  Thus allowing any recovery you 
> might need to have random access to the original file system without having 
> to dig through a save set sequentially.
> 
> An industrious fellow might also want to manage the RQ media setup and change 
> activities automatically from the AXP system with a program that does a TCP 
> connect to a simh Remote Console.
> 
> - Mark

Based on the documentation, the TQ device appears to be limited to 2000GB.  As 
a result I’ve been using the TS device.

Realistically, once I get these “tapes” created, I’ll be migrating part of the 
data from physical disks on the Alpha, to disks on SIMH/VAX.  I’ve already done 
some experimentation with that.  Unfortunately I have ODS-5 data, and some 
software requires an Alpha.

Okay…  Some more info on the crashes I’m seeing.  The first is specific to the 
current source in GitHub.  It seems pretty obvious at this point that I can 
write a tape from the Alpha, to a virtual SIMH VAX tape drive, but trying to 
read the data crashes the SIMH VAX.

This command started, got about half way through, and then the terminal session 
on my Alpha that I was running this on was reset.  The backup did not complete.
backup/verify/list $1$DKC300:[00...]*.*;* tape:A0005


Running this from the Alpha, crashes VAX, once it goes to Verify.  This 
happened on both V3.8-1 and on Current. 
backup/verify $1$DKC300:[00...]*.*;* tape:A0005
%MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, A0004 mounted on _$5$MSA0: (RENNY)
%BACKUP-I-STARTVERIFY, starting verification pass at 21-FEB-2018 00:11:02.08
%BACKUP-F-POSITERR, error positioning _$5$MSA0:[]A0005.;
-SYSTEM-F-VOLINV, volume is not software enabled


Partial output from the Console of the VAX.  If you look further down, you’ll 
see the full output from trying to read a tape.

SYSGETSYI.EXE  8344EA00 83450A00
SYSDEVICE.EXE  83450E00 83453800
MESSAGE_ROUTINES.EXE   83453E00 8345A000
EXCEPTION.EXE  8346A600 83474E00
LOGICAL_NAMES.EXE  83475600 83498E00
SECURITY.EXE   83499800 834A3200
LOCKING.EXE834A3A00 834AA800
PAGE_MANAGEMENT.EXE834AB200 834B5200
WORKING_SET_MANAGEMENT.EXE 834CA000 834CFE00
IMAGE_MANAGEMENT.EXE   834D0800 834D3E00
EVENT_FLAGS_AND_ASTS.EXE   834D4400 834D6600
IO_ROUTINES.EXE834D7000 834E7600
PROCESS_MANAGEMENT.EXE 834E9000 834F6A00
ERRORLOG.EXE   83560200 83560E00
PRIMITIVE_IO.EXE   83561400 83562600
SYSTEM_SYNCHRONIZATION_UNI.EXE 83562A00 83566E00
SYSTEM_PRIMITIVES_MIN.EXE  83567400 8356B200

 Starting memory dump, writing dump to unit number 0
. . . . . . .
 Memory dump complete, dump written  to unit number 0

HALT instruction, PC: 83C4D909 (MOVB 400(R1),R0)
sim> q




Okay, here is the crash from when I tried to read a tape from the Alpha.  I’m 
not sure if this is a cluster issue, or a SIMH issue.  I could test this with 
real hardware, but it would take quite a bit of time to dig out all the bits, 
assuming they still work.


 Fatal BUG CHECK, version = V7.3 CLUEXIT, Node voluntarily exiting 
VAXcluster

Crash CPU: 00Primary CPU: 00

Active/available CPU masks: 0001/0001

Current process = NULL

Register dump

R0 = 204C
R1 = 800A
R2 = 
R3 = 83AA28C0
R4 = 83A6B780
R5 = 83AA2A40
R6 = 
R7 = 00DE
R8 = 83A6E080
R9 = 83A9C080
R10= 83A6F000
R11= 7FFB9F0A
AP = 7FF6D558
FP = 7FF6D534
SP = 84595574
PC = 83C395E6
PSL= 04080004

Kernel/interrupt/boot stack

8459557C  204C
84595580  800A
84595584  83C391F1
84595588  83A5F4A3
8459558C  83A6B780
84595590  83A5FF0E
84595594  83A6B780
84595598  83A60B95
8459559C  83B61CC0
845955A0  83B7D140
845955A4  83A6F1F0
845955A8  83A9C2C0
845955AC  83A615C7
845955B0  83A60C25
845955B4  83A6E098
845955B8  84594210
845955BC  0034
845955C0  3778
845955C4  7FFB9E80
845955C8  7FFB9F3E
845955CC  7FFB9F0A
845955D0  7FF6D558
845955D4  83567ED2
845955D8  003E
845955DC  
845955E0  0009
845955E4  84594000
845955E8  83B7A

Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 19, 2018, at 10:42 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
> 
> On Monday, February 19, 2018 at 9:55 PM, Zane Healy wrote:
>> I’d posted about this nearly a month ago, and have made some real progress
>> this weekend.
>> 
>> Configuration:
>> MONK
>> OpenVMS 8.3/Alpha
>> Compaq XP1000/667
>> 
>> RENNY
>> OpenVMS 7.3/VAX
>> SIMH MicroVAX3900
>> 
>> I’m backing MONK up over the Cluster to a “tape drive” on RENNY.
>> 
>> First, Ubuntu includes a package for SIMH V3.8-1.  If you’re just using disk 
>> and
>> network, it seems to be just fine.  If you want to write tapes, it seems 
>> fine.  If
>> you want to read tapes, upgrade, as it appears to crash OpenVMS V7.3, at 
>> least
>> when messing with “tapes" the size I’m creating.  Hopefully the crashing 
>> isn’t a
>> clustering issue, I still need to test that.  I downloaded the latest SIMH 
>> sources,
>> and built them today, and I appear to be able to read tapes without crashing.
>> At least it doesn’t crash when reading from the SIMH VAX, I still need to try
>> reading one over the cluster on my Alpha.
> [...]
>> One stupid question, I assume that SIMH emulates the network interface at
>> 10Mbit.  Is there any way to speed that up?  Granted, all my real VAXen are
>> limited to 10Mbit, but a faster link in SIMH would be nice.
> 
> The network interface is not artificially limited to 10Mbit.  Years ago, I 
> measured some 25Mbit on my desktop system.  I suggest that you run 
> with the latest code from https://github.com/simh/simh.  Simh v3.8-1
> was from a long time ago, and significant changes have been made since 
> then.

I grabbed the latest copy of the source from GitHub yesterday.  I ran another 
backup last night using the current SIMH, and it was the first to die before 
finishing, but there could have been other issues.  I’m trying again, as that 
was also my first attempt and running it with the /LIST option.

As noted, the latest SIMH was needed to successfully read the tape (I simply 
did a listing).

It’s hard to judge the speed accurately, due to tape Metadata, but I’m seeing 
the ‘virtual tape’ be created at about 510KB/sec.  That is faster than what I 
was previously seeing.  I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the bottleneck is 
the virtual tape drive.

Zane

 
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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

I’d posted about this nearly a month ago, and have made some real progress this 
weekend.

Configuration:
MONK
OpenVMS 8.3/Alpha
Compaq XP1000/667

RENNY
OpenVMS 7.3/VAX
SIMH MicroVAX3900

I’m backing MONK up over the Cluster to a “tape drive” on RENNY.

First, Ubuntu includes a package for SIMH V3.8-1.  If you’re just using disk 
and network, it seems to be just fine.  If you want to write tapes, it seems 
fine.  If you want to read tapes, upgrade, as it appears to crash OpenVMS V7.3, 
at least when messing with “tapes" the size I’m creating.  Hopefully the 
crashing isn’t a clustering issue, I still need to test that.  I downloaded the 
latest SIMH sources, and built them today, and I appear to be able to read 
tapes without crashing.  At least it doesn’t crash when reading from the SIMH 
VAX, I still need to try reading one over the cluster on my Alpha.

My largest backup, from the Alpha, to a virtual “tape”, has been 23.5GB, which 
resulted in a 27.5GB image file.

Speeds are painful to say the least, but at least I seem to be getting readable 
backups (I will be doing more testing on that once the current backup 
completes).

One stupid question, I assume that SIMH emulates the network interface at 
10Mbit.  Is there any way to speed that up?  Granted, all my real VAXen are 
limited to 10Mbit, but a faster link in SIMH would be nice.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] VMScluster installation guide?

[Zane Healy]

Thanks!  I’ve updated that link, that’s one I hadn’t found.

Zane


> On Feb 16, 2018, at 8:11 AM, Tim Stark  wrote:
> 
> I checked PDP-10 page and it looks great.   
>  
> I noticed that KX10’s link is dead.  KX10 is now on GitHub - 
> https://github.com/brouhaha/kx10.git 
>  
> I was searching for any PDP-10 emulators on GitHub and discovered kx10 repo. 
>  
> Tim


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Re: [Simh] VMScluster installation guide?

[Zane Healy]

Looks like a great resource.  I’ve just added links to your pages to the VAX 
page on my DEC emulation website, under the installation information section.

http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/vax.html

As an FYI to everyone, the site is a lot more up-to-date than it has been in a 
decade (it also has a new location).  I’ve spent a lot of time the last couple 
weeks working on updating the PDP-10 section, and hope to finish that section 
in the next few days.

Zane



> On Feb 16, 2018, at 1:32 AM, Lennert Van Alboom  wrote:
> 
> Not to toot my own horn, but I documented my VMS-on-SIMH setup in 
> https://vanalboom.org/node/18  and the 
> follow-up clustering steps in https://vanalboom.org/node/19 
>  ... some of the info may be outdated (from a 
> SIMH point of view at least - I'm pretty sure VAX VMS hasn't changed much) 
> but it could still be of some use, I suppose.
> 
> 
> 
> Lennert
> 

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Re: [Simh] VMScluster installation guide?

[Zane Healy]

You probably want to look online for the following VMS manuals.

“Cluster Systems”
“Guidelines for OpenVMS Cluster Configurations” 

I’m trying to find time to read through them myself.  Setting up a basic 
cluster is easy, but it’s been nearly 20 years since I last ran a cluster, so 
there is a lot I don’t remember.

Zane




> On Feb 15, 2018, at 5:50 PM, Tim Stark  wrote:
> 
> Folks,
>  
> Does anyone have good VMScluster installation guide for SIMH VAX emulator?
>  
> I had seen that some time ago but today I tried to search through google but 
> found no sources so far.
>  
> I successfully installed full package of OpenVMS on my Pi clone (Tinker) with 
> many layered products.
>  
> I am still working on Multinet configuration for DHCP client.
>  
> I read some Multinet installation guide and found it elsewhere.  I had to 
> enable DHCLIENT flag on SE0 interface to resolve the problem with DHCLIENT 
> process.
>  
> I tried to clear default TCP/IP settings with SE0 interface (modify se0) on 
> CONFIG.INTERFACE to allow DHCLIENT working for automated TCP/IP setting 
> properly but…
> It failed and complaint about gateway address. I now need to clear gateway 
> address.
> Thanks,
> Tim
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Re: [Simh] best way to scan 172 column fanfold 80s printout?

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 11, 2018, at 12:10 PM, Timothe Litt  wrote:
> 
> Lighting is an issue, as is compensating for keystoning and other 
> misalignments.  Most cameras don't have a standard remote trigger interface - 
> one of the pointers I provided loads modified firmware into cameras from one 
> manufacturer to make this work.  If you look at digital camera reviews, 
> you'll see that the lenses have varying degrees of artifacts, especially at 
> the edges.  So you need to find and zoom to an area that's relatively "flat" 
> & doesn't need a lot of correction.  While depth of field will help, it also 
> will result in apparent font size changes as paper sways forward and back.  
> If you stop that, you simplify the OCR - and don't need as much depth of 
> field.

Even with a copystand getting everything lined up correctly is a pain.  I have 
a little trick I use when using a DSLR with a Macro lens on one of my 
copystands.  I have a pile of heavy/flat books to get enough height that I can 
rest the rim of the lens on the books.  I use this to get it parallel to the 
surface of the stand, then tighten the camera down.

I’ve never tried doing this with anything that needs OCR’d.  I’ve mainly used 
the setup for glass slides, but the next up for me will be some 200 year old 
art, that I’ve been asked to reproduce.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] best way to scan 172 column fanfold 80s printout?

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 11, 2018, at 6:55 AM, Dan Gahlinger  wrote:
> 
> I have several printouts like this,
> the one I was just trying to scan in is labelled "EMPIRE Version 4.0 
> 18-Jan-81"
> with the notice: "Please send bug reports to ELROND::EMPIRE"
> This is a Vax/VMS Fortran conversion from TOPS-10/20 from sources from around 
> fall 1979
> It seems I only have the first 95 pages of this printout
> and it's folded width-wise, making scanning more difficult, old folds are 
> hard to get out.
> 
> I also have Zork (Vax/VMS) and of course several different iterations of 
> Trek7 (Vms)
> somewhere I have a copy of Adventure (Colossal Cave) and the "Castle" game I 
> love so much.
> 
> so I guess question 1: how best to get rid of the folds? my method so far: 
> fold them the other direction and try and fold it out, but so far not much 
> luck
> and 2: how best to scan 100s of wide fanfold printout pages?
> 
> I wish someone in Toronto had converted an old teletype and put a camera on 
> it, that would be brilliant!
> 
> Dan.

The best way might be a piece of glass (to keep the paper flat), a copy stand, 
and a high-MP DSLR.  Lighting in that situation would be… interesting.  I’m not 
sure how much a polarizer on the lens would help.  One option might be to put 
it on a light table, but I think that would create an interesting/unreadable 
mess.  Actually less light might be better, and simply go with longer exposures.

There are graphic arts scanners that will do large pages, but in the art 
reproduction world, the method above (normally minus the glass), is more 
normal.  You’re lucky, you’re looking to copy something that doesn’t need to be 
1200dpi or better.  I know you can get up to at least 12x18 range with a 
scanner.  I’m currently looking for either one of these, or ideally a drum 
scanner capable of handling 11x14 negatives.  Right now the only way I have to 
get a digital copy of photo’s taken with my 11x14 camera, is to photograph the 
prints.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] NetHack game

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 3, 2018, at 4:30 PM, Bob Eager  wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 3 Feb 2018 23:41:48 +
> Dan Gahlinger  wrote:
> 
>> There are other games ? larn, moria, imoria, umoria, hack and rogue.
> 
> All of those exist today. I see they are all available as packages on
> FreeBSD here, for example.

I think most of these are also available on the OpenVMS Hobbyist V1 CD-ROM.  
The problem being, you need access to the CD-ROM.

My personal favorite is DND.  I have it running on PDXVAX, which is accessible 
via HECnet.

Zane




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Re: [Simh] PDP for beginners

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 2, 2018, at 6:25 PM, Pär Moberg  wrote:
> 
> I am looking to put up a PDP-# machine to play with. What machine and
> OS should I use. I am looking for simple/beginner system, or as
> beginner it got. Also, not *nix, it is still alive and therefore
> boring.
> Telnet terminals would be awesome but not necessary.
> //Pär (or Paer)

Reading this, I assume you’re looking to use SIMH, and not real hardware, but 
I’m honestly not 100% sure.

I totally understand your UNIX comment.

System and OS’s options that come to my mind are the following.

PDP-10:
TOPS-10
TOPS-20
ITS

PDP-11:
RSTS/E
RSX-11M or M+
TSX-plus

There was talk of a Hobbyist License for TSX-Plus, which runs on top of RT-11, 
but I’m not sure if that happened or not.

While it’s not a PDP system, realistically, from a “simple/beginner” 
standpoint, VAX/VMS would be a good option.  There is a great webpage out there 
on installing it, which means the hardest thing to do is to get registered for 
a Hobbyist License.
http://www.wherry.com/gadgets/retrocomputing/vax-simh.html

Zane



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Re: [Simh] EXT :Re: DEC Alpha Emulation

[Zane Healy]

Now that you mention it, I was mainly thinking about the video cards, which 
aren’t fully applicable here.  Though Network was another area besides disk 
where I remember it being a bit of a challenge.   I wish I’d known that an 
Adaptec 1542 was an option, finding a card I could afford was a nightmare about 
20 years ago.  The Adaptec cards were “dime a dozen” around here back then.  I 
had found a nearly new PWS 433a in a used computer shop, that didn’t know what 
it was worth, and with some effort got VMS running on it.  It was an impressive 
system, even after one of the card slots went bad, it was rock solid.

It looks like MAME already may already have "Adaptec AHA-1542{,C,CF} SCSI 
Controller” and "PCI Number Nine 9FX Vision 330 2.03.10 (S3 Trio64)" support.

The S3 would be a good option for VGA emulation, and I suspect that the Elsa 
Gloria Synergy would be also (though I suspect it would take a lot more 
effort).  The Elsa Gloria supports a higher screen resolution, and IIRC, more 
colours.  

I’m reminded of how I loved the Matrox Millennium II 4MB cards for PC’s back 
then, as they were supported by basically every x86 OS (including OPENSTEP and 
BeOS).

Zane



> On Feb 2, 2018, at 5:44 PM, Clem cole  wrote:
> 
> Be careful.  The comment about many of the pci boards were only NT while that 
> is true really is somewhat different.  For instance both vms an tru64 (and 
> FreeBSD for that matter) will all boot and run fine with an Adaptec 1542 
> controller (the 500au in my office only had same in it)
> 
> The SPD never spoke of it because neither TruCluster nor VMScluster could 
> properly do failover on them do to issues in the Adaptec microcode which they 
> would not fix because the mass market never cared.  But the default 
> controller for NT/Alpha was just that controller
> 
> I mention this because while the qLogic controller is the official one for 
> getting simh running it is going to be a PITA and the Adaptec might be a 
> better first start
> 
> Send me email offline if you want more info btw. 
> 
> Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite. 
> 
>> On Feb 2, 2018, at 4:06 PM, Hittner, David T [US] (MS) 
>>  wrote:
>> 
>> The Alpha target is the Digital Personal Workstation (PWS) 500au [codename: 
>> Miata], which qualifies as a single user workstation from a minimum 
>> licensing perspective.
>> 
>> Bob Supnik had one in his possession, and gave it to me to do comparisons. 
>> The Miata has both ARC and SRM firmware "full-flash", but the initial goal 
>> is to get SRM firmware to run OpenVMS and TRU64 using the serial console. 
>> Planned PCI boards are: DE500 ethernet, KZPAA(narrow) and KZP??(wide) SCSI 
>> disk/tape controllers, and the Digital PCI-to-PCI bridge which are all 
>> supported by every OS.  If someone writes a VGA controller in the future, it 
>> should be one supported by every OS, like the fairly basic S3 TRIO32/64+.
>> 
>> Windows NT support on ARC firmware could come later, but would require the 
>> VGA card emulation, unless you wanted to run NT "headless" over the serial 
>> port, which is allowed by the NT specification. ARC firmware is much harder 
>> due to having an x86 register emulator, and an INT 10 BIOS emulator, as well 
>> as running everything in 32-bit mode.
>> 
>> Yes, I would appreciate it if you would put something on your web page to 
>> have interested coders contact me. I could use the help.
>> 
>> Dave
>> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Zane Healy [mailto:heal...@avanthar.com] 
>> Sent: Friday, February 2, 2018 1:50 PM
>> To: Hittner, David T [US] (MS) 
>> Cc: "Vorländer, Martin" ; SIMH 
>> Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation
>> 
>> Thanks for the information Dave!  I’m glad to hear it’s still being worked 
>> on.  I can well imagine what a pain the firmware is, especially if you’re 
>> trying to support both the SRM and ARC firmware.  I wish I could help.  From 
>> my standpoint, getting SIMH to boot OpenVMS would be a big deal.  
>> 
>> Are you working to support a specific platform?  I’m curious since not every 
>> system supports SRM or ARC, and many of the PCI boards were only supported 
>> by Windows NT.
>> 
>> Would you like me to put a note on the webpage for anyone interested in 
>> helping to contact you via the SIMH mailing list?
>> 
>> Zane
>> 
>> 
>>> On Feb 2, 2018, at 10:01 AM, Hittner, David T [US] (MS) 
>>>  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Well, Migration Specialties is where the developer of ES40 went, anyway. :-)
>>> 
>>> I'm working on t

Re: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 3, 2018, at 3:43 AM, Angelo Papenhoff  wrote:
> 
> Why is the page for the 10 so hard?
> Lars is quite active in collecting and documenting things, check out
> http://gunkies.org/wiki/PDP-10
> 
> aap

The page for the PDP-10 was the best of the pages I have, and is the original 
page for the site.  As a result it needs a lot of updating.  It looks like even 
the bit savers links need fixed.

I just took a look at Lars page, it will definitely help, and I need to add it 
to my list of links.  I also see that he has updated the link to my page. :-)

Zane
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Re: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation

[Zane Healy]

Thanks for the information Dave!  I’m glad to hear it’s still being worked on.  
I can well imagine what a pain the firmware is, especially if you’re trying to 
support both the SRM and ARC firmware.  I wish I could help.  From my 
standpoint, getting SIMH to boot OpenVMS would be a big deal.  

Are you working to support a specific platform?  I’m curious since not every 
system supports SRM or ARC, and many of the PCI boards were only supported by 
Windows NT.

Would you like me to put a note on the webpage for anyone interested in helping 
to contact you via the SIMH mailing list?

Zane


> On Feb 2, 2018, at 10:01 AM, Hittner, David T [US] (MS) 
>  wrote:
> 
> Well, Migration Specialties is where the developer of ES40 went, anyway. :-)
> 
> I'm working on the SIMH Alpha simulator. It is quite a complex beast, where 
> the firmware required to power up the system to the chevrons (>>>) is an 
> operating system of small Linux complexity even before you can try to boot 
> OpenVMS, TRU64 or WinNT.  I think the simulation currently runs some 56 
> billion instructions before encountering a missing hardware simulation, and 
> it's nowhere near the chevrons - and hasn't even built the OS interface block 
> or the FW-level device tables yet.
> 
> If anyone would like to help with the Alpha development, I wouldn't say no. 
> It takes a long time to figure what the RISC firmware is trying to 
> accomplish. :-)
> 
> Dave
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Vorländer, 
> Martin
> Sent: Friday, February 2, 2018 3:16 AM
> To: 'SIMH' 
> Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation
> 
> Zane,
> 
> just had a look at your Alpha page, and noticed that you missed an emulator:
> FreeAXP / Avanti from Migration Specialties, 
> http://www.migrationspecialties.com/
> This is where the ES40 emulator went, AFAIK.
> 
> cu,
> Martin
> 
> -Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
> Von: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] Im Auftrag von Zane Healy
> Gesendet: Freitag, 2. Februar 2018 05:56
> An: SIMH 
> Betreff: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation
> 
> I'm in the process of slowly updating my DEC Emulation website, which has 
> been largely stagnant since 2007.  The first page I'm spending some 
> significant time on is the DEC Alpha page, as I'm curious to see what the 
> current options are.  In reviewing things, I notice that Alpha emulation was 
> worked on at some point for SIMH (probably around 2006).  What is the current 
> state of that work?  I had a quick google, and the most popular hit seems to 
> be mirrored copies of my site. 
> 
> http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/Alpha.html
> 
> Thanks,
> Zane
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation

[Zane Healy]

Thanks, I thought I had that one listed.  It’s there now, and the FPGA page is 
closer to being updated.

I’ll have to decide which I’m brave enough to tackle next, the VAX, PDP-11, or 
PDP-10 page.  The PDP-10 one will be the most challenging one to update.

Zane



> On Feb 2, 2018, at 1:16 AM, Vorländer, Martin  wrote:
> 
> Zane,
> 
> just had a look at your Alpha page, and noticed that you missed an emulator:
> FreeAXP / Avanti from Migration Specialties, 
> http://www.migrationspecialties.com/
> This is where the ES40 emulator went, AFAIK.
> 
> cu,
> Martin
> 
> -Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
> Von: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] Im Auftrag von Zane Healy
> Gesendet: Freitag, 2. Februar 2018 05:56
> An: SIMH 
> Betreff: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation
> 
> I'm in the process of slowly updating my DEC Emulation website, which has 
> been largely stagnant since 2007.  The first page I'm spending some 
> significant time on is the DEC Alpha page, as I'm curious to see what the 
> current options are.  In reviewing things, I notice that Alpha emulation was 
> worked on at some point for SIMH (probably around 2006).  What is the current 
> state of that work?  I had a quick google, and the most popular hit seems to 
> be mirrored copies of my site. 
> 
> http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/Alpha.html
> 
> Thanks,
> Zane
> 
> 
> 
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[Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation

[Zane Healy]

I’m in the process of slowly updating my DEC Emulation website, which has been 
largely stagnant since 2007.  The first page I’m spending some significant time 
on is the DEC Alpha page, as I’m curious to see what the current options are.  
In reviewing things, I notice that Alpha emulation was worked on at some point 
for SIMH (probably around 2006).  What is the current state of that work?  I 
had a quick google, and the most popular hit seems to be mirrored copies of my 
site. 

http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/Alpha.html

Thanks,
Zane



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Re: [Simh] very simple question

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 1, 2018, at 1:27 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
> On 2018-02-01 16:19, Paul Koning wrote:
>>> On Feb 1, 2018, at 10:15 AM, gerard.call...@pia-sofer.fr wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> Sorry for a such trivial question: I have to create a 9G hard disk 
>>> container.
>>> I used the rauser=size option with 90 and it is not accepted. What 
>>> is the unit of size of this option?
>> Megabytes (1 000 000 bytes) by default.  Or you can include the -L switch in 
>> which case it's in units of sector (512 bytes).
> 
> Right. In my init file I have:
> set rqb3 rauser=8192
> 
> which gives an 8G disk.
> 
>  Johnny

On the system I just built, I’m using 36gb and 50gb data disks.  For me this is 
going to be a big deal.  I can move most of my data and apps to emulated VAXen, 
and drastically reduce my power bills, by powering off the Alpha.  It’s nice 
having VMS running 24x7 at home again.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

Yes, I’m trying to preserve the data on hard drive from future hardware 
failures.

I started out looking to backup to virtual tape.  I’m still looking to do that, 
but I’m now mainly looking to move the majority of the data off of the Physical 
Alpha, and to a Virtual VAX.  I hadn’t realized how big of virtual disks could 
be attached, so didn’t consider that a practical option.

Last night I installed Linux on an old Core i5 system I’d picked up recently to 
run SIMH on.  Today I’ll try to get a new VAX system added to my cluster.  
Unlike my other two virtual VAXen, this one is on a host with a 500GB drive 
(tiny by todays standards, but huge compared to the Alpha, or  where the other 
two virtual VAXen are running).

Zane




> On Jan 26, 2018, at 1:27 AM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
> Then I must have misunderstood the usecase. I thought you were looking at 
> preserving a bunch of tapes from a future failure of the hardware.
> 
> Are you then looking at ways to perform backups of a physical system to 
> virtual tape?
> 
> I would probably give the virtual machine a really big disk and run backup to 
> that remote disk and not try to play with remote tapes.
> 
> Johnny 
> 
> 
> Zane Healy  skrev: (26 januari 2018 02:54:20 CET)
> If it was applicable to the situation, then VMSTPC would work great.  It’s 
> already installed on my Alpha, and I’m pretty sure there is a VAX binary for 
> it in the VAX directory on there.  I also have it installed on my RSX-11M+.  
> It’s definitely a great tool.  Just not for this. :-)
> 
> Zane
> 
> 
>  On Jan 25, 2018, at 2:54 PM, Armistead, Jason  
> wrote:
>  
>  Zane
>  
>  The program that Johnny is thinking of is VMSPTC
>  
>  http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/decus/vax86a/bnelson/vmstpc/vmstpc.c 
> <http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/decus/vax86a/bnelson/vmstpc/vmstpc.c>
>  
>  Note sure if this is the latest, but it came up in the first set of Google 
> search results for "VMSTPC"
>  
>  Good luck
>  Jason
>  
>  
>  -Original Message-
>  From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Johnny 
> Billquist
>  Sent: Thursday, 25 January 2018 5:48 PM
>  To: Zane Healy; Tim Shoppa
>  Cc: simh@trailing-edge.com
>  Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?
>  
>  Zane - unless I remember wrong, there is a tool from DECUS to copy tapes to 
> a file image, and then get that back to a tape again. The RSX version is 
> called TPC, and I'm pretty sure it also exists for VMS.
>  
>  Using that, pull your physical tapes into files, copy the files over to the 
> simulated machines, and write them back out to simulated tapes there.
>  
>Johnny
> 
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh 
> <http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh>
> -- 
> Skickat från min Android-enhet med K-9 Mail. Ursäkta min fåordighet.

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Re: [Simh] Terminal Emulator

[Zane Healy]

I initially had to use Telix running on a 386sx laptop to send the bootstrap to 
my PDP-11.  I used it a lot in the 90’s.  One of the best MS DOS programs I 
know of.

Zane




> On Jan 25, 2018, at 6:45 PM, Dan Gahlinger  wrote:
> 
> telix
> 
>  Original message 
> From: Pär Moberg 
> Date: 1/25/18 9:43 PM (GMT-05:00)
> To: Simh@trailing-edge.com
> Subject: [Simh] Terminal Emulator
> 
> Hello,
> I am looking for good terminal emulators for my 286. 
> I will attach to Linux and simh/pdp-11 and simh/pdp-8.
> I got a vga card for my 286.
> //Pär 
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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Jan 25, 2018, at 4:18 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
> Exabytes?
> I know there was some people who thought they couldn't do variable size 
> reocrds, but that is actually incorrect. They can. It might be wasting space 
> on the underlying tape or something, I don't know. But I certainly had 
> Exabytes connected to VAXen and PDP-11s, and used the normal DEC tools to 
> play around, and Exabytes behaves just like any other tape drive, in all 
> aspects.
> 
>  Johnny

Back when the Alpha in question was an AlphaStation 200 4/233, it had an 
Exabyte EXB-10 tape library hooked to it with at the time “massive” 5GB tapes. 
:-)  At that time my max disk size was 2GB, and I could still buy new Exabyte 
tapes.  I have a SCSI box with a Exabyte 8500 drive and a CD-ROM drive setup to 
hook to any DEC system that needs it.

The Alpha also has a TLZ06 drive installed in it, and a TZ30 and DLT7000 drive 
that can be hooked up.

So if I cared to trust old tape drives, I have options for my backups.  I 
don’t, so I’m looking to go virtual.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Jan 25, 2018, at 1:39 PM, Larry Baker  wrote:
> 
> I agree completely.  DECnet is your friend.  On VMS, it works right out of 
> the box.  I have never had a need to try rmt.  As I mentioned in an earlier 
> email, I have built a DECnet FAL-to-NFS gateway using DECnet-Linux.  It works 
> great for storing Backup Save Sets on an NFS file server.  Once there, they 
> can be compressed with gzip to save space for long-term archive.
> 
> Larry Baker
> US Geological Survey
> 650-329-5608
> ba...@usgs.gov 
How large of a saveset can you create doing this?  This might work for another 
use case I’m aware of.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Jan 25, 2018, at 2:22 PM, Dennis Boone  wrote:
> 
> If you're venturing into unix technology, it's possible to mount nfs
> shares on the VMS machines.  Then you can use BACKUP to write save sets
> onto the nfs share.  There seems to be some care needed with ADF
> metadata.  Multinet seems to write this to a hidden file or
> subdirectory; not sure what UCX/TCPIP do.

I actually looked into this option around 2008 (for the same Alpha).  If I 
remember correctly I ran into a problem on the VMS side of the file size limit 
(I have the same disk size now I had in 2008).  This can work, but you have to 
break larger disks up into chunks.  I’m hoping to avoid that, with the solution 
I’m looking at.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

If it was applicable to the situation, then VMSTPC would work great.  It’s 
already installed on my Alpha, and I’m pretty sure there is a VAX binary for it 
in the VAX directory on there.  I also have it installed on my RSX-11M+.  It’s 
definitely a great tool.  Just not for this. :-)

Zane


> On Jan 25, 2018, at 2:54 PM, Armistead, Jason  
> wrote:
> 
> Zane
> 
> The program that Johnny is thinking of is VMSPTC
> 
> http://www.digiater.nl/openvms/decus/vax86a/bnelson/vmstpc/vmstpc.c
> 
> Note sure if this is the latest, but it came up in the first set of Google 
> search results for "VMSTPC"
> 
> Good luck
> Jason
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Johnny 
> Billquist
> Sent: Thursday, 25 January 2018 5:48 PM
> To: Zane Healy; Tim Shoppa
> Cc: simh@trailing-edge.com
> Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?
> 
> Zane - unless I remember wrong, there is a tool from DECUS to copy tapes to a 
> file image, and then get that back to a tape again. The RSX version is called 
> TPC, and I'm pretty sure it also exists for VMS.
> 
> Using that, pull your physical tapes into files, copy the files over to the 
> simulated machines, and write them back out to simulated tapes there.
> 
>   Johnny
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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

>> 
>> As far as I can tell, the GITHUB repository lacks such files.
>> https://github.com/simh/simh/tree/master/
> 
> No, it's right there.  Remember that Github displays are case sensitive, so 
> all the machine directories (being upper case, apart from "alpha") come 
> first, then the lowercase ones such as "doc".  

I’m laughing at myself.  Not sure about 3.9, as I’m not at that computer, but 
just checked GitHub.  I saw the doc directory and mistakenly thought it was 
HP3000 specific.  I should have clicked on it and checked.

Thanks!
Zane


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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Jan 25, 2018, at 6:57 AM, Clem Cole  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 5:25 PM, Zane Healy  <mailto:heal...@avanthar.com>> wrote:
> 
>   I’d like to backup to a simulated tape drive on the one emulated VAX.  The 
> largest drive on my Alpha is 50GB.  I’d prefer not to have to span tapes. :-)
> ​Another thought...  what are you running the emulator on?  Is it a 
> UNIX/Linux flavor of some type?   I ask because there might be another 
> solution that could work a little better in practice, although you'll need to 
> pull together some pieces.  The problem is the bits in my brain WRT to 
> VMS are 20+ years old and I've forgotten the details so you'll have to do 
> some homework.
> 
> At one point, I remember that some VMS folks in ZK3 (CJ Coppersmith seems to 
> stick in my head by I do not remember) were messing we putting a the UCB 
> sockets library into VMS and were somebody ported the Berkeley rcmd(3) suite 
> on VMS from Tru64.   I'm not sure if how much of that library or which 
> commands ever saw the light of day in a production version of VMS.   But the 
> idea (then) was that a VMS system could use remote services (such as a tape) 
> via a socket.  The UNIX command is called rmt(8) (and of course mt(8) and 
> IIRC rmt(8) was originally based on the rcmd(3) calls from rsh/rcp et al.
> 
> So assuming VMS supports same, using mt(8)/rmt(8) is trival on a UNIX side.   
>   But more importantly for you is that on the UNIX side the remote 'device' 
> can be a UNIX file as easily as a physical tape if the 'source' side knows 
> about using a socket as the output 'device.'.  I've used this trick to back 
> up some older systems to modern devices these days (my Masscomp box for 
> instance).  The "tape files" are stored on my NAS which has redundant 
> physical disks etc...  In fact,  I've even recompiled mt/rmt for my Mac at 
> one point and I have it working on *BSD with modern tapes (just needed to 
> grab the mtio.h file from BSD).  

Interesting…  I wonder if this is an option in the latest versions of OpenVMS.  
I was already researching OpenSource VTL options.  The problem being a distinct 
lack of support for OpenVMS in any OpenSource backup software that I could find.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Jan 25, 2018, at 6:28 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> 
> On Jan 24, 2018, at 8:33 PM, Zane Healy  wrote:
>> 
>> How do I set the tape size to 0?  I’d say that’s a stupid question, but I’ve 
>> had very little luck finding documentation on the options.  Though I won’t 
>> rule out that I might be blind. :-)
> 
> In the SIMH source tree there's a "doc" subdirectory with documents for SIMH 
> generally, and for each of the ports.  The available configuration commands 
> can be found in the specific port document, for example vax_doc.doc and 
> vax780_doc.doc.
> 
> The commands are defined per controller type, but it looks like the code uses 
> a consistent syntax:
> 
>   set  capac=0
> 
>paul

Interesting.  I wonder if the documentation has gotten dropped somehow.  Either 
that or I’m still being blind.

As far as I can tell, the GITHUB repository lacks such files.
https://github.com/simh/simh/tree/master/

The v3.9-0 source at Trailing-Edge does as well.
http://simh.trailing-edge.com/

The v3.0 source on the other hand has a vax_doc.txt under the VAX subdirectory.

I’m using the SIMH build on Ubuntu in a VM.  That appears to be v3.8-1, and 
oddly enough you can do “man vax” which points you to where the doc’s are.  
Here are some of the applicable looking ones.
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  34768 Mar  2  2007 simh_magtape.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 188726 Feb  8  2009 simh.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   3501 May 27  2008 vax780_bug_history.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 107942 Feb  8  2009 vax780_doc.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 117234 Feb  8  2009 vax_doc.pdf

And there is the info I was after, in vax_doc.pdf. :-)

SET TS0 CAPAC=m

It looks like the TK50 emulation is limited to 2GB, so I don’t want to use that.

Plus it has details on the large disk sizes using SET RQn RAUSER{=n} that I’d 
found out about last night, and an RRD40 type that I was unaware of.

Next step, installing Linux on a Core i5 box I picked up for $75 recently to 
run SIMH.  If all this works, it will allow me to *significantly* cut my 
electricity bill, while keeping my VMS data online and accessible. :-) 

Zane




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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

Just to be clear, I’m looking to backup a physical machine, to a virtual tape 
drive, such that I can restore the data to either SIMH or a Physical machine.  
I don’t need to extract files.  I can extract files (and I have with some of 
the most critical) via NFS to my Mac.  

Except for legacy hardware, most tapes I dealt with in the 90’s were in the 
20-40GB range.  Current tapes now are multi-Terabyte, but not something most of 
us can afford to have at home, which is why I’m looking to go this route.

Zane




> On Jan 25, 2018, at 5:39 AM, Tim Shoppa  wrote:
> 
> A couple of the tape image utilities I wrote or updated in the 1990s have 
> that limit. Let me see if they are still in the SIMH utility tree. They never 
> would’ve bitten me back in the 90s because the biggest reels I ever dealt 
> with were 3600 feet at 6250 BPI, less than 250 Mbytes.
> 
> Tim
> 
> On Jan 25, 2018, at 8:23 AM, Johnny Billquist  <mailto:b...@softjar.se>> wrote:
> 
>> Hmm. None of the tools I wrote ever had that limit. They just process 
>> records and don't give a damn about absolute disk or tape position.
>> 
>> Johnny 
>> 
>> 
>> Tim Shoppa mailto:tsho...@gmail.com>> skrev: (25 januari 
>> 2018 00:53:34 CET)
>> Many common tape image tools as of two decades use 32-bit integers to carry 
>> offsets around and will be limited to 4Gigabyte tape image sizes.
>> 
>> I don't think this is a fundamental limit to the tape image formats used by 
>> SIMH, just a common limitation of the tape image tools you might find from 
>> 20 years ago.
>> 
>> Tim.
>> 
>> On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 5:02 PM, Zane Healy > <mailto:heal...@avanthar.com>> wrote:
>> What type/size of tapes does the VAX emulation support?  I was looking 
>> through the doc’s and it wasn’t obvious to me.  Is there a size limit?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Zane
>> 
>> 
>> 
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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Jan 24, 2018, at 2:17 PM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jan 24, 2018, at 5:07 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
>> 
>> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 2:03 PM, Zane Healy wrote:
>>> What type/size of tapes does the VAX emulation support?  I was looking
>>> through the doc’s and it wasn’t obvious to me.  Is there a size limit?
>> 
>> How big is your disk?  :-)
>> 
>> Really, there is no actual limit on total tape size, since the data format 
>> is 
>> only concerned with tape records which are then processed sequentially.
> 
> Then again, SIMH supports limiting the emulated tape size.  The SIMH VAX 
> document shows that it uses this feature: the tape units can be set to a 
> specific size limit, or 0 for unlimited.  The same is true for various other 
> emulations; I see the PDP11 has the same sort of thing, and for example its 
> TMSCP controller defaults to 98 MB (TK50 size).
> 
>   paul
> 

How do I set the tape size to 0?  I’d say that’s a stupid question, but I’ve 
had very little luck finding documentation on the options.  Though I won’t rule 
out that I might be blind. :-)

While looking for the answer to that, I may have found a better solution.  It 
looks like I can create a 50GB disk.  If I can do that, I can move my Alpha 
disks over to SIMH.  That would actually be my preference.  The two disks I’m 
the most concerned with are ODS-2.  The other two are ODS-5, and I think there 
are some filenames from OpenSource software that will have issues with ODS-2, 
but I can selectively move the data I want backed up to an ODS-2 disk.

The joke is, my 50GB disk only has about 8GB of data on it, one of the 36GB 
drives is the big one at about 26GB.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

> On Jan 24, 2018, at 2:07 PM, Mark Pizzolato  wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at 2:03 PM, Zane Healy wrote:
>> What type/size of tapes does the VAX emulation support?  I was looking
>> through the doc’s and it wasn’t obvious to me.  Is there a size limit?
> 
> How big is your disk?  :-)
> 
> Really, there is no actual limit on total tape size, since the data format is 
> only concerned with tape records which are then processed sequentially.

And this is why I need to pay attention to when I ask questions.  So I can give 
all the details.

Here is the story.  I have two emulated VAXen, clustered with my Alpha.  My 
only physical tape drives are getting *old*, as are my tapes.  I’d like to 
backup to a simulated tape drive on the one emulated VAX.  The largest drive on 
my Alpha is 50GB.  I’d prefer not to have to span tapes. :-)

Zane


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[Simh] VAX Tape Emulation?

[Zane Healy]

What type/size of tapes does the VAX emulation support?  I was looking through 
the doc’s and it wasn’t obvious to me.  Is there a size limit?

Thanks,
Zane



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[Simh] VMware and SIMH/VAX

[Zane Healy]

I finally found the root cause of the problems I’ve had with running the SIMH 
VAX 3900 emulation on an Ubuntu VM on my ESXI server.  I’d previously been 
using the VM for trying out a PDP-11 emulator on VMware, and the CPU was 
running at 100%, so I’d throttled it to 500Mhz.  That’s all well and good, but 
I forgot about that, and months later decided to start running some VAX 
emulators.  The I/O was somewhat “jerky” and the system lost time really bad.

In the mean time I brought another VAX VM up on a RPi2, and it runs just fine, 
and was largely out performing the VMware VAX.  Plus keeping perfect time, and 
for a month or so it’s been clustered with my Compaq XP1000/667.  It’s no speed 
demon, but it works great.

Finally I was reminded that I’d throttled the VM, and once I removed the 
throttle it was lighting fast with smooth I/O (way better than my VAXstation 
4000/60, which is my fastest VAX).  It’s also been running for over 24 hours, 
with no noticeable clock drift.  Next step will be to make it part of my VMS 
cluster.

Basically I’m writing this to get the info out there that if you’re running 
SIMH VAX emulation, that throttling the CPU of the host x86 VM is bad. :-)  At 
least if you want smooth emulation, and accurate time, 

For years I’ve preferred to run VMS and my PDP-11’s OS’s on the real HW, but I 
have to admit, the idea of not having to spend so much on power and cooling, or 
depending on ancient HW is appealing.  I’ve done PDP-11 emulation for about as 
long as I’ve had real PDP-11’s, but hadn’t fully gotten VMS up and running 
under emulation until about three months ago.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] VMS 1.5 installable?

[Zane Healy]

> On Oct 17, 2017, at 12:39 PM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Oct 17, 2017, at 3:31 PM, Ray Jewhurst  wrote:
>> 
>> I'm sure this has asked before but I couldn't find any references to it 
>> here. On Bitsavers, I found a file called vms_1.5_1600.tap and was wondering 
>> if it is something that can be installed on Simh and if so could someone 
>> please give me instructions on how to it? I think it would be fun to play 
>> with an early version of VMS.
> 
> I would assume so.  You need to set up the right simulated hardware and 
> devices.  11/780 with RP06 or something like that?  
> 
> There's a documentation set for V1.5 also on Bitsavers, including the 
> installation manual.
> 
>   paul

This is something I’ve wanted to try for years, but never found the time for.  
Please let us know how it goes!

Zane




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Re: [Simh] Terminal Emulation for SIMH?

[Zane Healy]

It’s definitely what I’m leaning towards.  Does it support LAT?

Zane


> On Sep 12, 2017, at 12:20 PM, Dan Gahlinger  wrote:
> 
> securecrt for the win.
> it's paid but so worth it
> 
> 
> 
> Dan
> 
> 
>  Original message 
> From: Warren Young 
> Date: 2017-09-12 3:15 PM (GMT-05:00)
> To:
> Cc: simh@trailing-edge.com
> Subject: Re: [Simh] Terminal Emulation for SIMH?
> 
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2017 at 12:41 PM, Zane Healy  <mailto:heal...@aracnet.com>> wrote:
> What terminal emulators are currently available for Mac OS X that support VT 
> emulation, specifically the emulation of the keypad?
> 
> I can't try it right now, as my current keyboard doesn't even have a numpad 
> on it, but SecureCRT appears able to do this. Session Settings > Terminal > 
> Emulation > Modes > Application keypad.
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Re: [Simh] Terminal Emulation for SIMH?

[Zane Healy]

> On Sep 12, 2017, at 12:33 PM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
> On 2017-09-12 20:41, Zane Healy wrote:
>> What terminal emulators are currently available for Mac OS X that support VT 
>> emulation, specifically the emulation of the keypad?  I previously used a 
>> script to reconfigure an X-Term, but I seem to recall the functionality in 
>> xterm was dropped.
> 
> xterm supports the VT keypad just fine without any scripts at all. Just 
> select VT220 keyboard and off you go. (You might also want to set thing like 
> DEL/BS and other things, to really get everything the proper way as DEC 
> intended it.)
> 
> And so far, xterm is the only terminal emulator (apart from the one in 
> Pathworks) that actually emulated a VT terminal correctly.

Is that xterm on Linux or Mac OS X?  I’ve installed XQuartz, and get keys 
undefined errors in EDIT.

Zane


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[Simh] Terminal Emulation for SIMH?

[Zane Healy]

What terminal emulators are currently available for Mac OS X that support VT 
emulation, specifically the emulation of the keypad?  I previously used a 
script to reconfigure an X-Term, but I seem to recall the functionality in 
xterm was dropped.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] DECserver (terminal server) emulation?

[Zane Healy]

If you did such emulation, would you include serial support, so a serial 
terminal could be attached to the computer running the emulator?  If so, that 
would be seriously cool!

Zane



> On Apr 8, 2017, at 1:37 PM, Tim Stark  wrote:
> 
> Folks,
>  
> I have a great idea about DECserver emulator.  Does anyone plan to emulate 
> one of DECserver series?
>  
> I discovered DS 200, 300 and 500 ROM images that I already downloaded some 
> time ago.  DS 200 uses 68000 processor and DS 500 uses KDJ11-SD processor.
>  
> SIMH’s existing 11/53 emulator can virtually be as DECserver 500 with that 
> DS500 ROM image.
>  
> SIMH’s 11/53 emulator do not have ROM mapping for that ROM image. My copy of 
> KDJ11-SD CPU technical manual said that it requires 32K or 64K ROM image for 
> booting.
> ROM image start at 1740 through 1777 (wrapping 128K ROM space with 
> I/O page at top).
>  
> I have plans to implement that on my MSE emulator. I am still working on it. 
> VAX emulation is almost finished.
>  
> Also, I found DS 200 tech docs through eBay.  I finally found CI780 tech 
> docs!!! 
> I am still looking for DS 300 tech docs. 
>  
> Any ideas?
>  
> Tim 
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Re: [Simh] How to access RT11/FIles11 floppy images on Windows?

[Zane Healy]

Interesting, I’m pretty sure I had it running on Virtual PC on my Mac, probably 
close to 15 years  ago.

This reminds me, has anyone made a VMware appliance for either the PDP-11 or 
VAX using SIMH?

Zane


> On Mar 18, 2017, at 9:49 AM, Tim Stark  wrote:
> 
> Ok,
>  
> I got and installed DOSBox 0.74.  I tried to access my RT11 disk images but 
> PUTR hung up after entered ‘mount rx0: image.dsk’.
>  
> With /RT11 option, it successfully mounted but…  I tried to access directory 
> (dir rx0: ) and it hung up forever…
>  
> I can’t kill PUTR until I pressed CTRL-F9 to kill DOSBox. 
>  
> Tim
>  
> From: Zane Healy [mailto:heal...@aracnet.com <mailto:heal...@aracnet.com>] 
> Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2017 11:41 AM
> To: Tim Stark mailto:fswo...@verizon.net>>
> Subject: Re: [Simh] How to access RT11/FIles11 floppy images on Windows?
>  
> Run it in a DOS VM.
>  
> Zane
> 
> On Mar 18, 2017, at 8:32 AM, Tim Stark  <mailto:fswo...@verizon.net>> wrote:
> 
>> Folks,
>>  
>> I googled and found PUTR utility but it is for PC-DOS systems only.   Does 
>> anyone know similar utility to access RT-11 and Files-11 floppy images for 
>> file extracts for other platforms (Windows, Linux, and OS X)?
>>  
>> Thanks,
>> Tim
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Re: [Simh] Free USER SPACE DECNET LAT MOP

[Zane Healy]

On Feb 19, 2016, at 2:15 PM, Timothe Litt  wrote:
> 
> 
> On 19-Feb-16 17:10, Zane Healy wrote:
>> You just caught my interest, BIG TIME!
>> 
>> Do you have DECnet for RT-11?  
>> 
>> Zane
>> 
>> 
>> 
> I don't, but the bits must be around.  I certainly ran RT-11 DECnet in real 
> life.   It's rather amazing that it fit.
> 
> We certified TOPS-10 DECnet against it.  NML, NFT, DAP, EVL and the rest of 
> the stack...
> 
> I'm sure someone else on the list has the bits.

I’ve spent the last 18 years trying to find someone that has a copy of DECnet 
for RT-11.  

Zane




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Re: [Simh] Free USER SPACE DECNET LAT MOP

[Zane Healy]

You just caught my interest, BIG TIME!

Do you have DECnet for RT-11?  

Zane




> On Feb 19, 2016, at 1:53 PM, Timothe Litt  wrote:
> 
> Just about every DEC network-capable OS is run here - from TOPS-10/20 to 
> RT-11.  

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Re: [Simh] TOPS-20 networking

[Zane Healy]

TOPS-20 V7 won’t run on a KS10 (simh), so requires a KL10B (KLH10).

Back when I was actively working with the emulators I recommended SIMH for 
TOPS-10, and KLH10 for TOPS-20.  I think more TOPS-20 V7 documentation has 
survived than V4.1, but I haven’t gone looking to see what’s available recently.

One of these days I hope to get an Intel NUC up and running, in part for things 
like simh and KLH10.  I can only imagine the speed of TOPS-10 on modern 
hardware!

Zane




> On Feb 19, 2016, at 1:27 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:
> 
> Zane,
> 
> Thanks for your reply.  The closest I ever came to these operating systems on 
> actual PDP-10s was via CompuServe in around 1980 to 1982.  So V4.1 is 
> contemporary with that era, I believe.  But mainly I was trying to stick with 
> simh.  I’ve never tried KLH10 and so nothing against it .. I was just trying 
> to stay loyal ..
> 
> I did install the pcap and other networking bits .. and have done that before 
> when running the VAX on simh.
> 
> I tried V7 and that’s when I realized it doesn’t run on simh.  Unless I’m 
> wrong.  But I’m assuming V7 is going to have the most fully developed 
> networking for using in a modern smh environment ..
> 
>> On Feb 19, 2016, at 1:52 PM, Zane Healy > <mailto:heal...@aracnet.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> Have the bits needed for networking on TOPS-20 V4.1 survived?  I didn’t even 
>> realize V4.1 was available.  I’d personally recommend KLH10, and TOPS-20 v7.
>> 
>> BTW, I’m honestly surprised that you’ve never run TOPS-20, I’d have thought 
>> you’d be one person to have. :-)  I assume you’re aware of my DEC Emulation 
>> pages, granted they’re very out of date, but anything that’s listed as a 
>> local copy should be there.  I see I have local copies of Bob’s TOPS-20 V4.1 
>> installation instructions.
>> 
>> Zane
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Feb 19, 2016, at 11:39 AM, Eric Smith >> <mailto:esmithm...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> SIMH friends,
>>> 
>>> Could you possibly point me to a guide for installing and (especially) 
>>> configuring the networking software for my fresh TOPS-20 V4.1 installation?
>>> 
>>> I have simh running on a linux host and I’ve been enjoying TOPS-20 on a 
>>> PDP-10.  I’ve done a clean installation and have installed a few unbundled 
>>> tapes.  I’m just learning TOPS-20 and I really like it.  I see I have MACRO 
>>> installed and can’t wait to learn to use it .. I enjoy assembly on just 
>>> about any hardware and I hear the PDP-10 is tops .. so to speak.
>>> 
>>> Anyway, for now I’d like to get the network access going.  Currently I’m 
>>> running it through a screen session on my linux host.
>>> 
>>> Any help truly appreciated.
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> Eric
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>>> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh 
>>> <http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh>
> 

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Re: [Simh] TOPS-20 networking

[Zane Healy]

Have the bits needed for networking on TOPS-20 V4.1 survived?  I didn’t even 
realize V4.1 was available.  I’d personally recommend KLH10, and TOPS-20 v7.

BTW, I’m honestly surprised that you’ve never run TOPS-20, I’d have thought 
you’d be one person to have. :-)  I assume you’re aware of my DEC Emulation 
pages, granted they’re very out of date, but anything that’s listed as a local 
copy should be there.  I see I have local copies of Bob’s TOPS-20 V4.1 
installation instructions.

Zane




> On Feb 19, 2016, at 11:39 AM, Eric Smith  wrote:
> 
> SIMH friends,
> 
> Could you possibly point me to a guide for installing and (especially) 
> configuring the networking software for my fresh TOPS-20 V4.1 installation?
> 
> I have simh running on a linux host and I’ve been enjoying TOPS-20 on a 
> PDP-10.  I’ve done a clean installation and have installed a few unbundled 
> tapes.  I’m just learning TOPS-20 and I really like it.  I see I have MACRO 
> installed and can’t wait to learn to use it .. I enjoy assembly on just about 
> any hardware and I hear the PDP-10 is tops .. so to speak.
> 
> Anyway, for now I’d like to get the network access going.  Currently I’m 
> running it through a screen session on my linux host.
> 
> Any help truly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> Eric
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Re: [Simh] EXT : Alpha under SIMH

[Zane Healy]

The problem with FreeAXP (for me at least), is the host OS requirements.  I 
don’t have any Computers running any of the required versions of Windows.  

Zane



> On Feb 19, 2016, at 10:49 AM, Timothy Stark  wrote:
> 
> There is FreeAXP emulator. Google it.
> 
> I installed OpenVMS on it and brought system up and running. It is slightly 
> faster than Alpha hardware. 
> 
> You can google for finding documents about chipsets and device chips to 
> complete Alpha implementation under Simh.  Also there is working open-source 
> ES40 emulator. Google  it. 

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Re: [Simh] EXT : Alpha under SIMH

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 19, 2016, at 10:31 AM, Craig A. Berry  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Feb 19, 2016, at 12:16 PM, Hittner, David T (IS)  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Not correct. Migration Specialties offers FreeAXP, which is a reduced 
>> performance Alpha.
>> I don't know if StromaSys still offers Personal Alpha or not.
>> 
> 
> I don’t think EmuVM has been mentioned yet: 
> . They used to have a free version but 
> appear not to currently.
> 
> There is the ES40 emulator on SourceForge that has been languishing 
> incomplete for a few years:
> 
> 
> 
> I don’t know but I’ve always assumed the author got involved with one of the 
> commercial emulators and then couldn’t continue contributing to an open 
> source version.  

Yes, he now works for one of the emulator vendors, and I think some of this 
code may have become part of their commercial offering.

I’d looked at the EmuVM website the other night, as I’ve been trying to 
research this some, as I have time.  They appear to have removed their free 
offering, and I’m not even convinced they’re still alive.  The website doesn’t 
exude confidence.
Zane



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Re: [Simh] EXT : Alpha under SIMH

[Zane Healy]

Am I correct that none of the Commercial solutions offer a “Hobbyist” emulator 
for the DEC Alpha anymore?

Zane



> On Feb 19, 2016, at 9:42 AM, Hittner, David T (IS)  
> wrote:
> 
> No. SIMH Alpha is just the CPU, no system (motherboard) and no peripherals. 
> It is not in a runnable state.
> 
> Alpha emulations are available commercially from multiple sources:
>   Migration Specialties
>   SRI (Charon)
>   AVTware
>   etc.
> 
> Dave Hittner
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Robert Thomas
> Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 12:13 PM
> To: simh@trailing-edge.com
> Subject: EXT :[Simh] Alpha under SIMH
> 
> We are on the verge of having to retire our AlphaStation XP1000.  We have 
> experimented with some of the commercial emulators, but based on very 
> positive experience with the VAX emulation under simh are wondering if the 
> AXP EV5 emulation that is hinted at on the simh web site is available and 
> functional?
> 
> Sincerely,
> Robert F. Thomas
> 
> 44 Industrial Way 
> Norwood, MA USA 02062
> N  Office Phone - (781) 329-9200
> O mail to: r...@asthomas.com
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Simh] Alpha under SIMH

[Zane Healy]

I’m glad you brought this up, as I was wondering the exact same thing.  I have 
an XP1000 myself, that I would like to retire, as it’s normally powered down 
due to power and cooling constraints.  The difference being, it’s a personal 
system, and not a business system, as such, I can’t afford expensive licenses. 
:-)

I’ve started looking at the VAX emulation under simh, as a way to get 24/7 
access to most of my VMS data, but would prefer Alpha emulation, and access to 
all of my data.

Zane




> On Feb 19, 2016, at 9:12 AM, Robert Thomas  wrote:
> 
> We are on the verge of having to retire our AlphaStation XP1000.  We have 
> experimented with some of the commercial emulators, but based on very 
> positive experience with the VAX emulation under simh are wondering if the 
> AXP EV5 emulation that is hinted at on the simh web site is available and 
> functional?
> 
> Sincerely,
> Robert F. Thomas
> 
> 44 Industrial Way 
> Norwood, MA USA 02062
> N  Office Phone - (781) 329-9200
> O mail to: r...@asthomas.com

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Re: [Simh] simh on RaspBerry Pi

[Zane Healy]

> On Feb 15, 2016, at 7:13 AM, Wilm Boerhout  wrote:
> 
> Zane Healy schreef op 15-2-2016 om 16:08:
>>> On Feb 15, 2016, at 12:47 AM, Wilm Boerhout  
>>> <mailto:wboerh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Please check out my post on running a VAXcluster on Raspberry Pi's
>>> 
>>> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vaxcluster-raspberry-pi-wilm-boerhout 
>>> <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vaxcluster-raspberry-pi-wilm-boerhout>
>>> 
>>> /Wilm
>> There are a couple things that I find interesting about this, and I find 
>> myself wondering, what real VAXen does the level of performance you’re 
>> getting with the various RPi models, compare to?
> The simh VAX gets about 4 VUPs on the 1GHz Raspberry Pi 2 and the Pi Zero, 
> and about 3 VUPs on the older original Raspberry Pi which runs at about 
> 600MHz.
> 
> But is is 5V, 1A compared to the original VAX-11/780 at 240V 3-phase, 32A. 
> Let alone the physical dimensions...
> 
> /Wilm

It looks like a good replacement for my VAXstation 3100, but not such a great 
one for the VAXstation 4000/60.  OTOH, the reduced power, size, and noise make 
this an attractive idea.  I’ve been meaning to try the original for emulating a 
PDP-10 and PDP-11 for a couple years, just never have the spare time. 

Any issues with LAT?  With something like this, I’d just as soon use my 
DECserver 90 TL and a VT420. :-)  I’ve never actually gotten VAX/VMS fully 
running on SIMH.  I think I tried it out as far as starting an install on my 
Mac a few years ago.

Zane



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Re: [Simh] VAX/VMS

[Zane Healy]

> 
> On Feb 15, 2016, at 9:14 AM, Will Senn  wrote:
> 
> What is a good source to learn a bit about VAX/VMS and the relationship of 
> the VAX and PDP-11 architectures and programming differences? I looked at the 
> Wikipedia article. I'm not sure it is entirely accurate and it is sketchy on 
> particulars.
> 
> Also, can the Vax run v6 or v7?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Will

There are plenty of good VAX and VMS manuals out there, including the 
documentation set.  Check eBay and abebooks.com.

The last version of VMS that will run on a VAX is v7.3.

Zane


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Re: [Simh] Stand alone FORTH interpreters

[Zane Healy]

On Apr 21, 2015, at 6:30 PM, Davis Johnson  wrote:

> Does anybody have a stand-alone FORTH interpreter laying around that might 
> run on any of the SIMH emulators?
> 
> Mid to late 1980s the FORTH Interest Group's FORTH Implementation Team 
> published a number of implementations that could typically be conditionally 
> assembled to run either stand alone or under an OS.
> 
> I've got a handful of actual machines (PDP/11-05, Nova 1200, IMSAI 8080, 
> Technico SS16, Interdata 6/16) that show signs of actually acting like 
> computers. None of them are likely to ever have enough in the way of 
> peripherals to run an OS in a meaningful way. Stand alone FORTH interpreters 
> existed for most of them at one time, and might be reasonable to run on these 
> striped-down relics.
> 
> Getting stand alone FORTH running on an emulator sounds like a good 
> intermediate step.
> 
> Has anybody run FORTH on any flavor of SIMH?

Have you looked at SOL-11?

I'm pretty sure I've booted it on SIMH, and I want to say I brought it up on 
one of my PDP-11's.

ftp://ftp.informatimago.com/pub/scheme-mirrors/www.t3x.org/attic/index.html

Zane



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