Re: [Simh] [OT] What's the difference between the 1990 Brunner VAX Architecture book and the Leonard from 1987?

[Paul Koning]

> On Jan 28, 2016, at 5:28 AM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Since there are some ex-DEC people here and many people knowledgeable in
> VAX can anybody tell me the [major] differences between these books if any?
> The Brunner book is very expensive, the 1987 copy is very affordable. What
> do I miss out on by buying the one by Timothy Leonard from 1987?
> 
> I realize the scans are up on bitsavers but I usually find real books
> easier to deal with.

I assume by "Brunner book" you mean the copy of DEC Std 032, the VAX 
Architecture Standard.  And "Leonard book" is the "VAX Architecture Reference 
Manual" edited by Tim Leonard, published by Digital Press.

Ok...  The DEC Std is a DEC internal document, labeled as such.  Some DEC 
standards were considered quite sensitive, and issued as numbered, 
individually-tracked documents.  I had one such for Alpha, which I duly 
returned to the document custodian when I left.

The DEC Std is the full, authoritative description of what a VAX is.  If you 
want to build a VAX (a new design, not a clone of an existing one), that 
document will tell you how to do so.  If you do everything it says, the result 
*should* be a correct VAX implementation, and VAX software should run on it.  

(This is the "conformance implies interoperability" principle of standard 
design.  This was the definition of proper standards design that was used at 
DEC.  For example, if you want to implement DDCMP, all you have to do is 
carefully code what the DDCMP spec say, and if you do so, it WILL work.   
Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world does not believe in this level of 
quality.  I was involved at one point in IETF standards work, and I mentioned 
this principle in a meeting.  The document editor actually objected to what I 
said and stated that it was unreasonable to expect protocol standards to do 
this.  And sure enough, the document he produced is NOT good enough that you 
can just do what it says and expect the result to be a working implementation 
-- you have to hack on it and test against other implementations to come up 
with the right combination of hacks and tweaks and bug workarounds for things 
to work.  Sigh.)

On the other hand, the Digital Press book is a public document.  Its purpose is 
to describe to VAX *users* what a VAX is.  If you want to port an OS, or a 
compiler, to VAX, you'll want this book.  If you want to write applications for 
VAX, it will certainly work as well (though it might be more than you need).

In other words, the book is a subset of the DEC Std.  If you want the ultimate 
reference, grab the standard.  If you want to debug an emulation (say, if there 
is debate about whether SIMH gets the VAX correct), the DEC Std will be the 
authority to settle the question. For other software work -- say, the NetBSD 
port for VAX, or the VAX backend of GCC -- the published book is likely to be 
sufficient.

paul

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Re: [Simh] [OT] What's the difference between the 1990 Brunner VAX Architecture book and the Leonard from 1987?

[lists]

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016 13:15:59 -0500
Paul Koning  wrote:

> 
> > On Jan 28, 2016, at 1:05 PM, Tom Morris  wrote:
> > 
> > You'll get better answers if you're more explicit with your references.
> > Paul took at guess at what you meant. I'm going to make a different
> > guess.

Both guesses were good enough. I don't have the printed books in front of
me and the sites I was buying from were missing basic stuff like the year
and ISBN in some cases. It was hard to cross reference it. I winged it and
bought the Leonard book because the price was right and I saw it mentioned
a few places online, also without complete biliographic info. I won't know
exactly what I got until it comes.

> > I'm guessing that the two books are:
> > 
> > - "Leonard book" - VAX Architecture Manual, first edition, edited by
> > Timothy Leonard and published by Digital Press in 1987
> > - "Brunner book" - VAX Architecture Manual, second edition, edited by
> > Richard Brunner & Dileep Bhandarkar and published by Digital Press in
> > 1990
> > 
> > The 1994 Digital Press catalog says the second edition "includes
> > important new material covering the VAX shared-memory model and new
> > vector processing extensions."  It presumably also includes a variety
> > of other revisions and corrections.  The book was written for public
> > consumption, based on, but different from, DEC Std 032.

Thanks. If all else fails we still have Bob Supnik's scans.

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Re: [Simh] [OT] What's the difference between the 1990 Brunner VAX Architecture book and the Leonard from 1987?

[Tom Morris]

You'll get better answers if you're more explicit with your references.
Paul took at guess at what you meant. I'm going to make a different guess.

I'm guessing that the two books are:

- "Leonard book" - VAX Architecture Manual, first edition, edited by
Timothy Leonard and published by Digital Press in 1987
- "Brunner book" - VAX Architecture Manual, second edition, edited by
Richard Brunner & Dileep Bhandarkar and published by Digital Press in 1990

The 1994 Digital Press catalog

says the second edition "includes important new material covering the VAX
shared-memory model and new vector processing extensions."  It presumably
also includes a variety of other revisions and corrections.  The book was
written for public consumption, based on, but different from, DEC Std 032.

Tom

On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 5:28 AM,  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Since there are some ex-DEC people here and many people knowledgeable in
> VAX can anybody tell me the [major] differences between these books if any?
> The Brunner book is very expensive, the 1987 copy is very affordable. What
> do I miss out on by buying the one by Timothy Leonard from 1987?
>
> I realize the scans are up on bitsavers but I usually find real books
> easier to deal with.
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Please do not copy me on mailing list replies. I read the mailing list.
> RSA 4096 fingerprint 7940 3F02 16D3 AFEE F2F8  ACAA 557C 4B36 98E4 4D49
> ___
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
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Re: [Simh] [OT] What's the difference between the 1990 Brunner VAX Architecture book and the Leonard from 1987?

[lists]

Thank you so much. That's a wonderfully complete and very helpful answer.
I will save your email for future reference.

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016 12:04:17 -0500
Paul Koning  wrote:

> 
> > On Jan 28, 2016, at 5:28 AM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Since there are some ex-DEC people here and many people knowledgeable in
> > VAX can anybody tell me the [major] differences between these books if
> > any? The Brunner book is very expensive, the 1987 copy is very
> > affordable. What do I miss out on by buying the one by Timothy Leonard
> > from 1987?
> > 
> > I realize the scans are up on bitsavers but I usually find real books
> > easier to deal with.
> 
> I assume by "Brunner book" you mean the copy of DEC Std 032, the VAX
> Architecture Standard.  And "Leonard book" is the "VAX Architecture
> Reference Manual" edited by Tim Leonard, published by Digital Press.
> 
> Ok...  The DEC Std is a DEC internal document, labeled as such.  Some DEC
> standards were considered quite sensitive, and issued as numbered,
> individually-tracked documents.  I had one such for Alpha, which I duly
> returned to the document custodian when I left.
> 
> The DEC Std is the full, authoritative description of what a VAX is.  If
> you want to build a VAX (a new design, not a clone of an existing one),
> that document will tell you how to do so.  If you do everything it says,
> the result *should* be a correct VAX implementation, and VAX software
> should run on it.  
> 
> (This is the "conformance implies interoperability" principle of standard
> design.  This was the definition of proper standards design that was used
> at DEC.  For example, if you want to implement DDCMP, all you have to do
> is carefully code what the DDCMP spec say, and if you do so, it WILL
> work.   Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world does not believe in
> this level of quality.  I was involved at one point in IETF standards
> work, and I mentioned this principle in a meeting.  The document editor
> actually objected to what I said and stated that it was unreasonable to
> expect protocol standards to do this.  And sure enough, the document he
> produced is NOT good enough that you can just do what it says and expect
> the result to be a working implementation -- you have to hack on it and
> test against other implementations to come up with the right combination
> of hacks and tweaks and bug workarounds for things to work.  Sigh.)
> 
> On the other hand, the Digital Press book is a public document.  Its
> purpose is to describe to VAX *users* what a VAX is.  If you want to port
> an OS, or a compiler, to VAX, you'll want this book.  If you want to
> write applications for VAX, it will certainly work as well (though it
> might be more than you need).
> 
> In other words, the book is a subset of the DEC Std.  If you want the
> ultimate reference, grab the standard.  If you want to debug an emulation
> (say, if there is debate about whether SIMH gets the VAX correct), the
> DEC Std will be the authority to settle the question. For other software
> work -- say, the NetBSD port for VAX, or the VAX backend of GCC -- the
> published book is likely to be sufficient.
> 
>   paul
> 
> ___
> Simh mailing list
> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

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Please do not copy me on mailing list replies. I read the mailing list.
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