Re: [Simh] NVAX/CVAX-based VAXstation emulation?

[Paul (lists) Hardy]

Matt Burke has implemented the QDSS VCB02 Dragon colour graphics device in his 
side branch of SimH, as a VAXstation II. I’ve tried a prototype and it seems to 
work well, up to the limits of VS2 memory limits etc.

I believe he intends to merge it into mainstream SimH in due course, as his 
time allows. If anyone wants to help, he can be contacted through 9track.net. 

Regards.

-- 
Paul Hardy | 
Cambridge, UK |
www.pghardy.net |

On 5 Apr 2019, at 01:34, Timothy Stark  wrote:

Of course, I would like to see NVAX emulation for SIMH emulator like VAX 
4000/6000 series.
Also I want to see color display instead of QVSS monochrome. 

That give full 32-bit physical addressing that give up to 3.5 GB main memory. 

Tim

-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Mark Pizzolato
Sent: Thursday, April 4, 2019 8:23 PM
To: Chris Hanson ; simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] NVAX/CVAX-based VAXstation emulation?

> On Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 4:33 PM, Chris Hanson wrote:
> Is anyone planning to add NVAX/CVAX-based VAXstation emulation to simh?
> 
> I was surprised that pretty much nothing appears to emulate (for 
> example) the VAXstation 4000 series.

Feel free to attempt to emulate the graphics on that system.  It is a pretty 
big project.  :-)

Meanwhile, the VAX simulator does have support (not console) for the QVSS
graphics device.   That is a mono-chrome only display, but it certainly 
exercises the basics.

- Mark
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[Simh] Win32 Binaries?

[Paul (lists) Hardy]

What's happened to the building of the SimH Win32-Development -Binaries -
the latest ones on github seem to be from February, and the Readme says they
are built at least once a week?

 

Regards,

 

-- 

Paul  Hard

Email:   paul at the paulhardy.net domain, web:  
www.paulhardy.net

 

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Re: [Simh] CI Code Released

[Paul (lists) Hardy]

Matt Burke said:
>> There are more simulations in the pipeline (HSC70, VAX 8200, VAXstation 
>> 2000, VAXstation 3100...).
>> Hopefully I'll get these released soon too.

I'm particularly interested in the VAXStation 3100 (and MicroVAX 3100) - I'm 
trying to ressurect an old LAVC system for history archiving, and the original 
licences are for 3100s so insufficient units for the MicroVAX 3900 simulation.

I'm also very interested in the VAXstation aspects - did you get any further 
with the QDSS colour graphics emulation?

I'd be happy to take part in any testing and debugging.

Regards,

-- 
Paul  Hardy
Email:   paul at the paulhardy.net domain, web: www.paulhardy.net

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Re: [Simh] Getting SimH 4 past Beta stage?

[Paul (lists) Hardy]

 

Isn't it time that SimH 4.x came out of Beta status and became the current
release, so it gets picked up by the various package release systems?

 

I've just done apt-get install simh on a Raspberry Pi over a new Raspbian
(Debian) install, and it still gets 3.8.1-5.

 

What's the current timescale for shift to 4.x as the live version to happen?

 

Regards,

 

-- 

Paul  Hardy

web:   www.paulhardy.net

 

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Re: [Simh] Mounting simh disk files in Linux

[lists]

On Fri, 4 Mar 2016 08:36:46 +
Joshua Overmiller  wrote:

> I'm having errors attaching the XQ controller to eth0.

Post config and messages.

> Note: I'm using Debian Jessie.

Should work fine.

> I also had problems when trying to make the simh targets.  I got an error
> from the make file about statically linking against libpcap.
> I...removed the check from the makefile and built it anyways.  Did I do a
> bad, bad thing?

Maybe. Without seeing the build output probably nobody can tell you. You
should get a clean build or all bets are off.

> I am going to go back and find Toby Thain's write-up as another user
> suggested and see where that gets me.

If you have a broken build or prereq pieces missing that won't help. The
info you posted now should have been posted in the first thread along with
a config and messages. simh is very well written and builds and runs on a
lot of problematic platforms. There is no reason it shouldn't build cleanly
and work fine on Intel Linux.

Solve the first problem first and the rest may just go away.

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Re: [Simh] Mounting simh disk files in Linux

[lists]

On Thu, 3 Mar 2016 14:35:52 +
Joshua Overmiller  wrote:

> I will also want to get some files off the simh VAX.  Hence the need to
> mount the simh disk image files.

> I'm struggling with getting the networking running in simh, so I'm looking
> into this route.  However, other suggestions for getting files out of the
> simh disk image files are welcome.

Did you see the network bridge info in 0readme_ethernet in the simh
tarball? If that doesn't help, see Toby Thain's writeup in the simh git
repo. It works for me on Linux.


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Re: [Simh] Zork for ITS [was: Klh10 vs Simh]

[lists]

On Mon, 29 Feb 2016 20:29:47 -0500
Clem Cole  wrote:

> I am under the impression that both Dungeon and Adventure are part of the
> Intel compiler test suite (as they were for the DEC compilers), so I
> suspect they will even run on on modern Mac's, Linux and Window's boxes if
> you set the FTN value in the makefile to point to fort (which you can get
> a free noncommercial license for if you poke around the Intel websites).

Did you mean ifort? The non-commercial license program was cancelled within
the last 12 months unfortunately. Because of abuse in the academic sector!

Now the academics can get free copies but not non-commercial users...
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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[lists]

On Mon, 29 Feb 2016 08:49:15 +0100 (CET)
Andreas Davour  wrote:

> "The over-all design of the LISP Programming System is the work of
> John McCarthy and is based on his paper NRecursive Functions of
> Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machinett which was
> published in Communications of the ACM, April 1960."
> 
> So that timeframe is sound.

It's interesting how many of the oldest languages are still in active use
and still moving forwards after so many years. There seems to have been
some kind of golden age of programming that started in late 1950s and went
for about a decade.

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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[lists]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 23:05:47 +0100
Johnny Billquist  wrote:

> On 2016-02-27 20:46, Paul Koning wrote:
> >
> >> On Feb 27, 2016, at 2:36 PM, Bill Cunningham 
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> Well that's certainly before ICs I think that was in the 1950s and it
> >> was some early calculators that killed slide rules.

Slide rule killing didn't really start rolling until the late 1970s IIRC.
Personally I still used one until the mid 80s but YMMV.

> What kind of "processor" were they using?

HP had their own proprietary processors for decades. They finally went to
ARM, native for some models and emulation under ARM for others.

I don't know enough about the TI line but later models used z80 and M68K. I
believe the latest model(s) runs on ARM.

> I'm not so sure there was real HLL before Adm. Hopper.

Yes, there was, see below.

> And no binary by Babbge. Do you have any links or anything from the '40s?
> >
> > HLL?  I was talking about assembler...  Anyway, I don't believe COBOL
> > was the first HLL, though it certainly was fairly early.
> 
> The first HLL ought to have been FORTRAN. Lisp might have been the 
> second, but I'm not entirely sure.

Yes, that seems to be the consensus. FORTRAN started in the mid 1950s,
COBOL was released in 1959, PL/I in 1962.

Although LISP was developed on IBM machines it wasn't an IBM product so I
don't remember the exact date but IIRC it was in the 1958/1959 timeframe,
so pretty much the same time as COBOL.


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Re: [Simh] pdp11 and unix

[lists]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 17:32:19 -0500
Paul Koning  wrote:

> Decimal did show up at times even into the 1960s, for example in the IBM
> 1620.  But it never made all that much sense; converting between binary
> and decimal is quite easy even in those very old machines.  The one
> plausible application area is business data processing where the
> arithmetic is trivial and most of the work is I/O or other non-arithmetic
> operations.

IBM S/360 (1964) and follow-ons have all had hardware support for decimal
and COBOL and PL/I on these platforms have always had native suport for the
data type.

As you might expect decimal arithmetic is used extensively in financial
transactions and reporting since there is no problem of conversion. Money
can be represented exactly rather than approximately as with floating
point. Most banks still run their financial transactions on IBM hardware
and OS for that reason among others.

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Re: [Simh] Cross Compilers (and memories thereof)

[lists]

Indeed, the PL/M compiler comes with notes saying it was hosted on MTS.
This thread could be the start of something very interesting! Thanks guys!


On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 17:39:58 -
"Dave Wade"  wrote:

> I note someone said MTS hosted several cross assemblers and compilers.
> Readers may be interested to note that a sanitised copy of MTS ready to
> run on the Hercules S390/XA/390 emulator is available for download.
> 
> http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/mts-d60A
> 
> http://www.hercules-390.eu/
> 
> Dave Wade
> G4UGM
> 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of
> > Armistead, Jason BIS
> > Sent: 23 February 2016 17:32
> > To: simh@trailing-edge.com
> > Subject: Re: [Simh] Cross Compilers (and memories thereof)
> > 
> > Let's move this to a new thread subject of its own !

Indeed! :-)


> > 
> > On Tuesday, 23 February 2016 12:04 PM, Davis Johnson 
> > wrote (under old subject Re: [Simh] Interdata OS/32: hello-world in
> > CAL32) :
> > 
> > > One that I remember was TI had a 9900 cross assembler written in
> > FORTRAN (all caps in those days). It was free to educational
> > institutions.
> > > I talked a prof. into requesting it, but the available FORTRAN
> > > compiler didn't
> > like it.
> > 
> > Another now-defunct company, Microtec Research Incorporated (purchased
> > by Mentor Graphics in late 1995), definitely had a TI9900 cross
> > assembler written in FORTRAN from 1983.  We had the source code under
> > license and compiled it under VAX/VMS (complete with CLI switches), and
> > with a few custom tweaks, it was largely compatible with SDSMAC that
> > ran on TI's 990 computer systems (now simulated via Dave Pitts'
> > SIM990).  There was also a linker/loader that produced Tektronix HEX
> > output (similar to TI's SDSLNK) as the final executable.  I was able to
> > modify the code enough to get it to compile under OpenWatcom's Fortran
> > 77 on Windows XP.
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Re: [Simh] Interdata OS/32: hello-world in CAL32

[lists]

On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 14:15:11 +
"Armistead, Jason  BIS"  wrote:

> Hosting on a VAX under VMS might be viewed as a little extreme when the
> target had less than 64K of EPROM and a few K of RAM, but it worked.

That's what I meant. I know what a cross compiler is. I never saw a
mainframe-hosted cross-compiler back in the day and here within 2 days I
found out about two mainframe hosted cross compilers. And then your note
about extreme re: VAX/VMS. Imagine!
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Re: [Simh] Interdata OS/32: hello-world in CAL32

[lists]

Thanks very much for the additional info. Your post was very timely since I
read in the notes that come with the PL/M cross compiler that is being
discussed that it was a cross-compiler hosted on MTS and VM/CMS.

I don't think I ever came across a cross compiler in the old days. It is
interesting to see that people used these odd combinations.

I wonder if we should start trying to archive and document cross compilers
specifically.


On Tue, 23 Feb 2016 01:01:28 -0500
johns...@gregjohnson.org wrote:

[very nice story snipped]
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Re: [Simh] Compatibility you can use Was: VAX/VMS

[lists]

On Mon, 22 Feb 2016 11:13:37 -
"Dave Wade"  wrote:

> > >
> > > You can't seriously mean that you think that a 32-bit application and
> > > a 64-bit application would be expected to be compatible with each
> > > other? I would expect the 32-bit code to work in 32-bit mode, but
> > > having it work if you are in 64-bit mode is a ridiculous expectation.
> > 
> > Really? It works fine on IBM's z/OS.
> > 
> > It seems ridiculous to me that you think it shouldn't. This is what I
> > have been saying. IBM moved from 24 bit to 31 bit to 64 bit and
> > everything still works. No expanded footprint, no duplicate libraries,
> > no problem.
> > 
> 
> That’s not (quite) true. As I said before problem state code works fine.

That is 99.9% of all applications code.

> Anything that uses supervisor mode will likely fail. 

Absolutely not true. I don't know of any code we wrote for XA and ESA that
runs sup state that had any problems going forward. We continue to support
ESA code to this day. I can't remember anything that failed. I also can't
remember an OS service that wasn't upward compatible.
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Re: [Simh] Compatibility you can use Was: VAX/VMS

[lists]

On Mon, 22 Feb 2016 10:07:10 +0100
Johnny Billquist  wrote:

> On 2016-02-22 07:07, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> > However, we see that Intel's hardware compatability is only of academic
> > interest because virtually none of the OS or apps for several
> > generations of Intel chips runs on any remotely current Intel-hosted
> > OS. I already pointed out many day-to-day incompatibilities between
> > code running 32 bit vs. 64 etc. on Intel today. You can blame Microsoft
> > or Bell Labs or even Richard Stallman but Intel has certainly been
> > involved intimately with much OS development on its platform and has
> > continued to bork time after time.
> 
> You can't seriously mean that you think that a 32-bit application and a 
> 64-bit application would be expected to be compatible with each other?
> I would expect the 32-bit code to work in 32-bit mode, but having it 
> work if you are in 64-bit mode is a ridiculous expectation.

Really? It works fine on IBM's z/OS.

It seems ridiculous to me that you think it shouldn't. This is what I have
been saying. IBM moved from 24 bit to 31 bit to 64 bit and everything still
works. No expanded footprint, no duplicate libraries, no problem.

> And the OS should detect that it's a 32-bit application, and set the
> system up for running such an application with the CPU set the right way.
> The CPU can do it. If things fail because the OS does things wrong, you
> should not blame the CPU.

I didn't blame the CPU. I said Intel's compatibility is really only
academic and has no actual value in most cases:

> > We all know at the end of the day people buy hardware to run apps. We
> > also know most of the apps ever written for Intel are no longer useful
> > even if you could boot obsolete OS and run them. Any meaningful notion
> > of compatibility has to include the ability to continue to run your
> > apps on every new OS and hardware generation. With Intel you can't. You
> > can point all the fingers you want but that is the reality in the Intel
> > environment.
> >
> > In practice, several decades of software and development investment,
> > applications, and OS go up in smoke with each new generation of Intel
> > chips. In contrast IBM has preserved the customer's investments in
> > technology, development, and applications. IBM takes the loss on the OS
> > development but the customer's applications continue to run forever on
> > the latest platform. Intel is an ecosystem of churning, turmoil and
> > waste. That's something only an accountant could love.
> 
> I think you are confusing the backware compatibility in the processor, 
> which is working just fine, with the less than stellar backward 
> compatibility in various OSes along the way, which is nothing you should 
> blame on Intel.

I'm comparing Intel's shortcomings and consistent track record of borks to
what I have seen done well by IBM. It was all there for Intel and the
developers who write for it to see how things were done right, but they
kept making mistakes. There's just no excuse for most of the decisions.
Except possibly from Intel's accounting viewpoint as was discussed.

> Like I said, grab an old DOS floppy, pop it into a a new machine, and it 
> will boot. That's a fact.

See above. That doesn't really help the 99.9 bar percent of people that
spent money on DOS and DOS apps and countless other OS and software that
don't run on Windows on modern hardware.

> > As has been noted code from virtually the beginning of OS/360 still runs
> > today and furthermore can happily coexist with newly written apps
> > without any hoop jumping like relinking, recompiling, or needing
> > multiple libraries. It just continues to work. Software compatibility
> > beats hardware compatibility any day of the week. What's important is
> > that your application and development investment continues to be viable
> > on each new hardware platform with each new OS. That is what IBM has
> > done, and it is a combination of hardware and software designed to work
> > together and boy does it ever, as opposed to a pizza with everything on
> > it spoiled by too many chefs.
> 
> Yes. IBM has done an excellent job.

It's not just excellent in the abstract. It's the best example we have in
the history of computing of how good engineering and upward compatability
as fundamental design principles preserves the investment in software and
development skills. Virtually everything that ever ran since the beginning
of OS/360 in 1964 still runs on the latest hardware and OS here in 2016,
all without recompiling or relinking or duplicate libraries, etc.
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Re: [Simh] Compatibility you can use Was: VAX/VMS

[lists]

On Sun, 21 Feb 2016 08:50:45 -0500
Clem Cole  wrote:

> To pick on DEC (or IBM), the later generations of their respective ISAs
> cannot boot the older OS – which Intel’s primary ISA can – and that is
> what started this discussion.

I can't speak to DEC's issues but with IBM has already been said, this was
by design. They were selling hardware. The OS and program products helped
them do that.

However, we see that Intel's hardware compatability is only of academic
interest because virtually none of the OS or apps for several generations
of Intel chips runs on any remotely current Intel-hosted OS. I already
pointed out many day-to-day incompatibilities between code running 32 bit
vs. 64 etc. on Intel today. You can blame Microsoft or Bell Labs or
even Richard Stallman but Intel has certainly been involved intimately with
much OS development on its platform and has continued to bork time after
time. 

We all know at the end of the day people buy hardware to run apps. We
also know most of the apps ever written for Intel are no longer useful even
if you could boot obsolete OS and run them. Any meaningful notion of
compatibility has to include the ability to continue to run your apps on
every new OS and hardware generation. With Intel you can't. You can point
all the fingers you want but that is the reality in the Intel environment.

In practice, several decades of software and development investment,
applications, and OS go up in smoke with each new generation of Intel
chips. In contrast IBM has preserved the customer's investments in
technology, development, and applications. IBM takes the loss on the OS
development but the customer's applications continue to run forever on the
latest platform. Intel is an ecosystem of churning, turmoil and waste.
That's something only an accountant could love.

As has been noted code from virtually the beginning of OS/360 still runs
today and furthermore can happily coexist with newly written apps without
any hoop jumping like relinking, recompiling, or needing multiple
libraries. It just continues to work. Software compatibility beats hardware
compatibility any day of the week. What's important is that your
application and development investment continues to be viable on each new
hardware platform with each new OS. That is what IBM has done, and it is a
combination of hardware and software designed to work together and boy does
it ever, as opposed to a pizza with everything on it spoiled by too many
chefs.

In terms of rubber meets the road upward compatibility what IBM has
delivered over the lifetime of OS/360->MVS-XA-ESA-z is infinitely more
valuable than compatibility on paper that nobody who runs Intel has ever
been able to take any practical advantage of.
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Re: [Simh] Interdata OS/32: hello-world in CAL32

[lists]

Thanks for the very interesting info! I have not come across this machine
or software and did not know anything about it.

On Thu, 18 Feb 2016 21:16:32 -0500
Davis Johnson  wrote:

> I'm pretty sure the resemblance was intentional  so as to be an easier 
> sell to customers familiar with 360 assembler.
> 
> There was a rumor that they had originally hoped to sell low-cost 
> training machines to schools when real computers were expensive.
> 
> There is some architectural resemblance if you throw out most of the 
> address modes, base registers, have fewer condition code bits... You end 
> up with 16 two's complement registers, uniform size 8-bit op codes, RX, 
> RR, and RI addressing modes (with a few variants).
> 
> A 16 bit quantity on the 16 bit machines was always, from the beginning, 
> a "HALF WORD".
> 
> The assembler, "CAL" (Common Assembly Language) would assemble 16 or 32 
> bit source.
> 
> With care it was possible to write source code that could be assembled 
> to either 16 or 32 bit object. Don's example uses some of the features, 
> A(...) specifies an "address length" constant, 16 or 32 bit as 
> appropriate. There was a whole set of opcode mnemonics that would 
> assemble appropriately depending on the target. The BASIC interpreter 
> was a key example, and was actually distributed in source form. I'd love 
> to find a copy.
> 
> If you were really careful you could create a binary that would actually 
> run on 16 or 32 bit machines without modification. Some of the hardware 
> diagnostics are this way. Look for COMMON in the diagnostic title.
> 
> For a 32 bit target a different kind of careful would let you write 
> position independent code.
> 
> On 02/16/2016 05:16 AM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> > Fascinating and very similar in syntax to the assembler for IBM OS/360
> > and later. Does anybody know the history behind this?
> >
> > On Mon, 15 Feb 2016 13:58:26 -0500 (EST)
> > dst...@execulink.com (Don Stalkowski) wrote:
> >
> >> *L EDIT32
> >> TSKID = EDIT32
> >> *ST
> >> *13:19:38   EDIT32:PERKIN-ELMER OS/32 EDIT 03-145 R04-01
> >> *EDIT32>GET HELLO.CAL
> >> *EDIT32>T 1-12
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:1 SVC   1,SAY
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:2 SVC   3,0
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:3 ALIGN ADC
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:4SAY  DBX'28'
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:5 DBX'00'
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:6 DS2
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:7 DCA(SAY1)
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:8 DCA(SAY2)
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:9 DAS   2
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:   10SAY1 DCC'HELLO WORLD '
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:   11SAY2 EQU   *-1
> >> *13:19:48   EDIT32:   12 END
> >> *EDIT32>END
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> >
> >
> 
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Re: [Simh] VAX/VMS

[lists]

On Tue, 16 Feb 2016 11:52:17 -0500
Paul Koning  wrote:

> 
> > On Feb 16, 2016, at 9:56 AM, Timothe Litt  wrote:
> > 
> > ...
> > Nonetheless, Brooks (@IBM) definitely gets credit for the first
> > commercial line of architecturally (forward) compatible machines.  Prior
> > to that inspiration, every new machine was unique and most software
> > started over (including compilers).
> 
> I'm not sure that "first" is accurate.  If in the sense of a series of
> machines for which that feature is specifically marketed, perhaps.  But
> the PDP4/7/9/15 is another example that started somewhat earlier.  (PDP1
> doesn't quite match, as I understand it.)  CDC 6000 series definitely
> fits your definition, and those came out at the same time as the 360.
> The Burroughs B5000 series is somewhat older (1961, says Wikipedia).

More correctly we should say the IBM S/360 was the first series of
computers to be designed around an architecture so that the smallest and
largest models in the lineup were all architecturally identical (mostly!)
and that could all run the same OS (mostly). The upward compatibility came
later, but was enabled by a lot of sound architecture decisions including
one design regardless of capacity.

> Of all those, the IBM 360 descendants are perhaps the most commercially
> successful, and also probably the longest lived.

Not perhaps or probably, but certainly.
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Re: [Simh] VAX/VMS

[lists]

On Tue, 16 Feb 2016 11:25:37 -0500
Clem Cole  wrote:

> Unless you are using a cell phone, I'm willing to bet that you are typing
> your messages on a INTEL*64 architecture system, even if the processor is
> not made by Intel.

Nope! Sun Blade!

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Re: [Simh] Interdata OS/32: hello-world in CAL32

[lists]

Fascinating and very similar in syntax to the assembler for IBM OS/360 and
later. Does anybody know the history behind this?

On Mon, 15 Feb 2016 13:58:26 -0500 (EST)
dst...@execulink.com (Don Stalkowski) wrote:

> *L EDIT32
> TSKID = EDIT32
> *ST
> *13:19:38   EDIT32:PERKIN-ELMER OS/32 EDIT 03-145 R04-01
> *EDIT32>GET HELLO.CAL
> *EDIT32>T 1-12
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:1 SVC   1,SAY
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:2 SVC   3,0
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:3 ALIGN ADC
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:4SAY  DBX'28'
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:5 DBX'00'
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:6 DS2
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:7 DCA(SAY1)
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:8 DCA(SAY2)
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:9 DAS   2
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:   10SAY1 DCC'HELLO WORLD '
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:   11SAY2 EQU   *-1
> *13:19:48   EDIT32:   12 END
> *EDIT32>END
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Re: [Simh] vax simh and loading file

[lists]

On Sat, 13 Feb 2016 13:36:29 +0100
Rhialto  wrote:

> On Fri 12 Feb 2016 at 15:17:26 -0800, Bill Deegan wrote:
> > For the PAKs I just copy/pasted to get things going. That worked fine.
> > Bring it up in a text editor on host machine, select all. Then in your
> > simh window you should be ok to paste.
> 
> I used a variation on this, I think. I connected to the VAX with Kermit.
> Kermit has a "transfer" command which will basically paste a text file
> for you, but with settable character and line end delays. This way you
> can avoid overflowing VMS' input buffers.

I have a slowish SIMH host for VMS so maybe that helps but I cut and paste
like the above poster said and I never had trouble with the OpenVMS PAKs
overflowing edit's buffers.



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Re: [Simh] error

[lists]

On Tue, 9 Feb 2016 13:58:59 -0800
Mark Pizzolato  wrote:

> You may recall that older computers didn't have a way to programmatically
> power themselves down.
> 
> VMS is one of those systems.
> 
> When you shutdown a VMS system it closes all files and cleans up
> everything going on in the operating system then it displays a message
> which says something like "SYSTEM SHUTDOWN COMPLETE - USE THE CONSOLE TO
> HALT THE SYSTEM" and then it goes into an infinite loop with interrupts
> disabled.  The simulator detects this condition which will never produce
> useful results from the simulated system again without operator
> intervention and allows you to do that.
> 
> Would you want it to behave differently?

Personally, no. When I shutdown VMS and I get back to a SIMH prompt that
tells me everything happened the way I wanted/expected. I quit from SIMH
and all is well.

> 
> From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Bill
> Cunningham Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 2016 1:46 PM
> To: simh@trailing-edge.com
> Subject: [Simh] error
> 
> After using shutdown on my virtual VMS, it dropped to the simh prompt
> and had this error.
> 
> Infinite loop, PC833DC8D3 (BRB ...)
> and the same hex number were the ... is. What does that mean?
> 
> Bill
> 
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Re: [Simh] SIMH and physical hardware

[lists]

Hi,

I felt a twinge of sorrow reading your post but I am glad you posted it.

There are certainly many people on this list who do or did own actual
hardware but you have to remember many people who used these machines back
in the day never saw the machine or came near it. In most universities and
businesses the machines were kept in what today would be called a server
room, along with air conditioning and cabling either on the floor or under
it (raised floor). The vast majority of users and programmers sat in
terminal rooms or at their desks in cubes or offices and were connected to
the machine by physical cabling. You typically never saw the blinkinlights
or heard the machine or felt the disk drives shaking the floor or the
heat coming off the CPU cabinet. One of the things I remember most is how
loud an IBM 1403 printer is with the hood raised. It's almost to the point
of being unbearable because of how shrill and loud it was.

Again, I'm not saying many people didn't have that experience or that it
isn't important on many levels. I'm just saying the majority of programmers
and end users didn't have that experience so you didn't miss anything
except the comeraderie of being in a terminal room with a bunch of your
friends when the system crashed and hearing everybody groan at the same
time. Or being there in the middle of something when the power failed in
the whole building and losing your work (maybe or maybe not, depending on
what machine you were using). A lot of PDP gear was in small labs where
most students didn't go. At least that's the way it was in the universities
and schools I visited.

The same was true in big companies that used mainframes. The programmers
typically were not allowed in the machine room. The doors had combination
locks and only authorized personnel like operators and IBM's support staff
were allowed in there. Slipping into the machine room with an operator
buddy was grounds for dismissal in some of the places I have worked. Some
data centers in universities and business did have glass walls onto the
floor. But most did not.

The main way that we get the sense today of "wow this is great" is seeing
the terminal displays with the same layouts and prompts as we did in the old
days. For that I am truly sorry you don't have a way you can relate to it.
Imagining what that must be like is painful. On the other hand since you
said you were not around in those days it isn't as bad as it could be.

Bottom line these emulators are keeping old systems and software alive far
past the time that most people can longer use them. You still get a chance
to use old OS, software, and tools and "see" how things worked from that
point of view. You get to use some great quality code the likes of which we
haven't seen in a long time.

Thanks for your post and best regards. Happy vintage computing!


On Tue, 9 Feb 2016 21:41:03 -0800
Zachary Kline  wrote:

> This is around 50% humorous, but it’s still a thing I’ve been thinking
> about lately. From a newbie’s perspective, all SIMH machines are very
> similar. The worst thing about emulation is that the “feel,” of the
> original hardware doesn’t seem to be there. Simh can emulate tons of
> hardware from different manufacturers, but none of that will tell me what
> it was like to actually use the devices in a physical sense. As a blind
> user, I’m doubly interested in this kind of physicality because I
> experience the world through touch and sound. I have little conception of
> the shape or size of many of these notional machines, and they are all
> reduced to various abstractions at a console prompt. It’s hard to imagine
> a thing I was far too young to experience. I was reminded of an Apple II
> emulator I saw once, sadly not accessible, which made the appropriate
> disk drive noises in use. Its kind of useless from a  practical
> standpoint, but a lot of my interest in these machines isn’t practical to
> begin with. I want to explore an earlier kind of computing, but don’t
> expect to get a job with it or have anything beyond some entertainment. I
> really don’t know what, if anything, can be done to bridge this weird
> disconnect. Actual hardware is probably gradually fading out, and in any
> case probably wouldn’t be accessible from my perspective anyway.
> 
> Any thoughts? Apologies for the disjointed post, it’s rather late. ;)
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[Simh] [Announce] Emacs 21.2 for VMS/VAX

[lists]

Hopefully the following information will be of some interest and value to
people running VMS/VAX on SIMH.

Because of keyboard issues I found the native VMS editors to be difficult
to use. I have been using Emacs for a long time on other platforms so I
went looking for a copy to run on VMS/VAX but couldn't find a binary. I
don't have the skills or tools to build Emacs from source on VMS/VAX.

I have been using MicroEmacs 4.0 which is stable and runs very well on a
low spec SIMH host. However the features are minimal bordering on spartan.
It's not a very good editor for coding and seems to be relatively
unsupported although old builds are available for VMS/VAX. An appeal for
help on the post-fork MicroEmacs mailing list yielded thundering silence.

I brought up the issue on comp.os.mvs and one of the guys spent some time
getting gnu Emacs 21.2 working. There were a few problems initially but he
seems to have gotten it working. The performance on a low spec SIMH host is
unacceptable but on a reasonably modern PC it works great.

With the permission of the developer who built and got it working, I am
reposting the info from comp.os.vms here. Many thanks to 
hb  for his generosity in making this available.

Any issues, discussion, etc. please follow up to comp.os.vms on usenet.

---
I uploaded emacs21_2_vax.zip to https://www.sendspace.com/file/byw8z7.
Feel free to announce it on any other mailing list and/or copy the zip
archive to a VMS specific archive/repository.

--- 8< ---

This is the readme file of the emacs kit for VAX: emacs21_2_vax.zip.

GNU Emacs 21.2 for VAX/VMS

Contents of emacs21_2_vax.zip:

emacs21_2_vax.txt - this file
emacs-vax-bin.txt - how to use the binary kit
emacs-vax-build.txt - how to build emacs from the sources
emacs21_2_vax_bin.zip - the binary kit
emacs21_2_vax_src.zip - VAX specific files for building emacs

The binary kit was built on V7.3 without support for TCPIP and X11:
$ @[-.emacs212_3]configure --with-tcpip=NO --with-x=NO --WITH-X-TOOLKIT=NO -
--prefix=bld_root:[LOCAL] --startupdir=bld_root:[LOCAL.STARTUP]

Building for any other configuration may require additional source code
changes. The supplied VAX specific sources are not intended to be
compiled on other VMS platforms. Some of the files may be seen as hacks
to get emacs running on VAX/VMS. The base source code for emacs is not
included in this kit. The base source code is a VMS version based on
emacs version 21.2. The source code can be found on the OpenVMS freeware
CD version V8.0: emacs/emacs21_2.zip. These sources are for building
emacs for Alpha. This zip archive contains temporary files, which are
not required for the build, as well as an Alpha executable image.
Unfortunately these sources were not found in the emacs git repository
on savannah.gnu.org.

Please note, officially the support for VMS was removed in Emacs 23.
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Re: [Simh] VAX Architecture Editions

[lists]

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016 12:57:02 -0500
Bob Supnik  wrote:

> You'll miss the late additions to the architecture for NVAX and the 9000.

Thanks.

> However, you can get the 1990 version, in its internal DEC form rather 
> than book form, from 
> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/archSpec/EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.pdf.
> 
> /Bob Supnik

Yes, I have that already. Thank you so much for running bitsavers and all
the other countless wonderful things you have done and still do for the
computing community. I'm sure not even you could list them all!

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

[lists]

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.

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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
> 
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Re: [Simh] VAX Architecture Editions

[lists]

On Thu, 28 Jan 2016 16:23:32 -0500 (EST)
Rich Alderson  wrote:

> > Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2016 18:18:50 +
> > From: li...@openmailbox.org
> 
> > On Thu, 28 Jan 2016 12:57:02 -0500
> > Bob Supnik  wrote:
> 
> >> However, you can get the 1990 version, in its internal DEC form rather 
> >> than book form, from 
> >> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/archSpec/EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.pdf.
> 
> > Yes, I have that already. Thank you so much for running bitsavers and
> > all the other countless wonderful things you have done and still do for
> > the computing community. I'm sure not even you could list them all!
> 
> While Bob has done wonderful things for us all, Bitsavers is not one of
> them.
> 
> That is due to the efforts of Al Kossow, who used to do all the scanning
> and collating into PDFs himself, and still does a lot as well as
> accepting scans from others around the world.
> 
> Just to keep things straight.

Doh! I realized that after I sent the email but it was too late. I am sorry.

Huge thanks to Al Kossow for running bitsavers and to Bob Supnik for SIMH
and all the other great stuff you and other people do for the community.

Thanks to Rich for giving me a chance to apologize and give credit to the
right people.

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[Simh] How to set up network bridge for SIMH on Solaris host?

[lists]

Hi,

Can anyone please explain how to set up a network bridge on a Solaris host
for SIMH? I have searched the net and can't find any examples of people
running SIMH on Solaris. Thank you.

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Re: [Simh] How to set up network bridge for SIMH on Solaris host?

[lists]

On Sun, 3 Jan 2016 15:55:34 +0100
Jan Vlach  wrote:

> > There has to be a way to do this, right? ;-)
> 
> Hi,
> 
> haven't tested this myself in combination with simh, but I remember
> correctly, there used to be a weay to get tun/tap in solaris 10:
> 
> http://www.opencsw.org/packages/tun/
> 
> 
> google 'solaris tun tap' for more hints

Thanks a lot. I found a Japanese site with some code that looks like it
should be easily configured to work like tun/tap.

If anybody knows how to do it with native commands in S10 please let me
know. Thanks to everybody who answered.

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Re: [Simh] How to set up network bridge for SIMH on Solaris host?

[lists]

Hi,

On Sun, 3 Jan 2016 04:24:23 -0800
Mark Pizzolato  wrote:

> On Sunday, January 3, 2016 at 1:46 AM, li...@openmailbox.org  wrote:
> > Can anyone please explain how to set up a network bridge on a Solaris
> > host for SIMH? I have searched the net and can't find any examples of
> > people running SIMH on Solaris. Thank you.
> 
> I haven't tried building on Solaris for quite a while, but things should
> still work.

I don't think that it doesn't work. I just don't have much idea what I'm
doing.

> Can you explain what you are trying to achieve with your 'network bridge'?

I may not even be using the correct terms. I want the VMS OS instance
running on SIMH to be able to use the network of the Solaris host. If I run
it as root it works fine. If I run it as a user it doesn't.

I found magic recipes for Linux and OpenBSD hosts running SIMH and they
work fine. I don't know how to get it to work on a Solaris host.

> Can you describe the network topology you're working with and which
> devices on the network you'd like your simh instance to communicate with?

I would like it to be able to use the host network as transparently as
possible without running as root. It should be able to serve telnet and ftp
(no competing instances running on the host) and apps running under VMS
should be able to reach the internet via ftp, etc.

Thank you.

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Re: [Simh] How to set up network bridge for SIMH on Solaris host?

[lists]

On Sun, 3 Jan 2016 04:49:58 -0800
Mark Pizzolato  wrote:

> On Sunday, January 3, 2016 at 4:40 AM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> > On Sun, 3 Jan 2016 04:24:23 -0800 Mark Pizzolato 
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > On Sunday, January 3, 2016 at 1:46 AM, li...@openmailbox.org
> > wrote:
> > > > Can anyone please explain how to set up a network bridge on a
> > > > Solaris host for SIMH? I have searched the net and can't find any
> > > > examples of people running SIMH on Solaris. Thank you.
> > >
> > > I haven't tried building on Solaris for quite a while, but things
> > > should still work.
> > 
> > I don't think that it doesn't work. I just don't have much idea what I'm
> > doing.
> > 
> > > Can you explain what you are trying to achieve with your 'network
> > > bridge'?
> > 
> > I may not even be using the correct terms. I want the VMS OS instance
> > running on SIMH to be able to use the network of the Solaris host. If I
> > run it as root it works fine. If I run it as a user it doesn't.
> > 
> > I found magic recipes for Linux and OpenBSD hosts running SIMH and they
> > work fine. I don't know how to get it to work on a Solaris host.
> > 
> > > Can you describe the network topology you're working with and which
> > > devices on the network you'd like your simh instance to communicate
> > with?
> > 
> > I would like it to be able to use the host network as transparently as
> > possible without running as root. It should be able to serve telnet and
> > ftp (no competing instances running on the host) and apps running under
> > VMS should be able to reach the internet via ftp, etc.
> 

sim> show version
VAX simulator V3.9-0 [64b data, 64b addresses, Ethernet support]

> Have you tried:
>   sim> ATTACH XQ NAT:
Eth: pcap_open_live_error - nat:: No such device exists (/dev/nat: missing
unit number)

> You should look at "HELP XQ ATTACH"
Too many arguments

sim> help attach
at{tach}   attach file to simulated unit


> You can setup incoming port mappings which will route host ports to
> simulated ports so FTP and TELNET can work as well.  If you want to use
> standard TELNET and FTP ports you will have to run as root to bind those
> network ports.

That is not how I have been using it so far.

In Linux and OpenBSD the bridge scripts set up a "bridge" whatever that
means. After that the SIMH instance runs as an unprivileged user but has
access to the host network as if the SIMH guest OS had its own network. Here
are the two scripts I found that work for me.

This is the one I use on OpenBSD. It allows the SIMH OS instance to get a
DHCP lease and use the host network transparently. The bridge is set up as
root and then the unprivileged SIMH instance can use it.

#!/bin/ksh
ifconfig tun0 create
ifconfig tun0 link0
ifconfig tun0 up
ifconfig bridge0 create
ifconfig bridge0 add re0 add tun0
ifconfig bridge0 up

For Linux I found this script:

#!/bin/bash
# Based on script at: # 
https://github.com/simh/simh/blob/v3.9-0/0readme_ethernet.txt
# Changes by 
# Tested on Gentoo

set -e

# If you want the tunnel interface owned by an unprivileged user, give the user 
name as 1st argument
USER=${1:+-u $1}
# Interface (if not eth0) is 2nd argument
INTERFACE=${2:-eth0}

BRIDGENAME=simh

ifconfig $INTERFACE | grep inet | (
  read SKIP HOSTIP SKIP HOSTNETMASK SKIP HOSTBCASTADDR
  HOSTDEFAULTGATEWAY=`route | grep ^default | awk '{print $2}'`
  echo "Host IP: $HOSTIP Netmask: $HOSTNETMASK Broadcast: $HOSTBCASTADDR"
  echo "Default gateway: $HOSTDEFAULTGATEWAY"

  tunctl -t tap0 $USER
  ifconfig tap0 up
 
  # Now convert eth0 to a bridge and bridge it with the TAP interface
  brctl addbr $BRIDGENAME
  brctl addif $BRIDGENAME $INTERFACE
  brctl setfd $BRIDGENAME 0
  ifconfig $INTERFACE 0.0.0.0
  ifconfig $BRIDGENAME $HOSTIP netmask $HOSTNETMASK broadcast $HOSTBCASTADDR up
  # set the default route to the br0 interface
  route add -net 0.0.0.0/0 gw $HOSTDEFAULTGATEWAY
  # bridge in the tap device
  brctl addif $BRIDGENAME tap0
  ifconfig tap0 0.0.0.0

  echo "Bridge is now configured (ip:$HOSTIP) between $INTERFACE and tap0."
  echo "To inspect, run   brctl show"
)

# Run simulator and "attach xq tap:tap0"


Same thing here. I run the script as root and then SIMH as a user.

Can the same thing be done on a Solaris host?

Thanks.







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Re: [Simh] How to set up network bridge for SIMH on Solaris host?

[lists]

Hi,

On Sun, 3 Jan 2016 14:32:54 +0100
Hans Rosenfeld  wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 03, 2016 at 09:46:23AM +, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Can anyone please explain how to set up a network bridge on a Solaris
> > host for SIMH? I have searched the net and can't find any examples of
> > people running SIMH on Solaris. Thank you.
> 
> What version of Solaris?

10

> 
> On illumos I usually just create a vnic over a real ethernet interface,
> and attach the simulator to that:
> 
> # dladm create-vnic -l rge0 simh0
> 
> rge0 is my ethernet interface, simh0 is the name of the vnic. You can
> then attach simh to simh0 as you would attach it to any other ethernet
> interface. This will allow you to communicate with the host as well as
> with the network it is attached to.

I will try this with Solaris 10, unless dladm isn't supported on that
version. Thanks a lot for the suggestion!

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Re: [Simh] How to set up network bridge for SIMH on Solaris host?

[lists]

On Sun, 3 Jan 2016 15:04:14 +0100
Hans Rosenfeld  wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 03, 2016 at 01:55:00PM +, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
> > > On illumos I usually just create a vnic over a real ethernet
> > > interface, and attach the simulator to that:
> > > 
> > > # dladm create-vnic -l rge0 simh0

Unfortunately this doesn't work in Solaris 10. Thanks anyway.

There has to be a way to do this, right? ;-)

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Re: [Simh] Tutorial on setting up RT-11 v5.3 in SimH PDP-11

[lists]

On Wed, 30 Dec 2015 16:17:26 -0600
Will Senn  wrote:

> All,
> 
> I have posted a new blog entry in the form of a tutorial on setting up 
> and using RT-11 v5.3 in SimH. It is accessible via:
> 
> http://decuser.blogspot.com/2015/12/tutorial-setting-up-rt-11-v53-on-simh.html

Thank you very much. I haven't had time to look over it but as I have no
DEC background I'm interested in helpful articles like that. I'd like to
find some good ones for RSX-11M also.

I plan to have a look at your page as soon as I get out from under the pile
of work that always seems to get dumped on me at year's end.

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Re: [Simh] Feasibility of connecting physical LK to emulated LK device

[lists]

On Wed, 23 Dec 2015 23:51:47 -0800 (PST)
b...@gewt.net wrote:

> As it is largely just serial, I can think of museum displays this could
> benefit (next pet project: SDL in a console framebuffer) due to the
> simple adapter needed (http://www.wickensonline.co.uk/vaxen/linuxLK.html) 
> 
> Thoughts? 

Perhaps this should be posted on comp.os.vms? Sounds like a wonderful tool
for people with original keyboards using modern terminal emulators if I
understood what you did. Should be of much interest! 

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Re: [Simh] GOLD Keys and such

[lists]

On Sun, 20 Dec 2015 14:26:20 -0500
Christian Gauger-Cosgrove  wrote:

> However, in the IBM mainframe world, there were the "typewriter"
> terminals, like the 1052-7 and 3215. Also, let's not forget the IBM
> 2703 Communications Control unit; which had the option of using the
> IBM Telegraph Terminal Control Type II; which provides a way for Model
> 33 and Model 35 TWX terminals to connect to a mainframe. Hercules
> emulates all of those (the 1052-7, 3215, and 2703 with TELE2); the way
> to connect to those are via "plain" telnet.

We should clarify the way you connect to Hercules _emulating_ those devices
is telnet. Telnet does not work with real IBM devices on real IBM mainframe
hardware.

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Re: [Simh] GOLD Keys and such

[lists]

On Sat, 19 Dec 2015 15:44:26 -0500
Christian Gauger-Cosgrove  wrote:

> On 19 December 2015 at 14:42, Random832  wrote:
> > Its UI may be clunky or dated, but as far as emulation capabilities go,
> > xterm really is the cadillac of VT100 emulators.
> >
> Just would like to state that in Windows-land PuTTY does an excellent
> job of emulating the VT-100; even doing the dual-wide and dual-height
> characters (which I don't think I've seen done in others before... at
> least other emulators in Windows).
> 
> The one and only problem I've found with PuTTY is that for some reason
> it's telnet is not compatible with the Hercules (IBM System/370 and up
> mainframe emulator; not SIMH project) emulator.

That is because IBM doesn't use telnet or serial terminals. They use the
3270 series terminals and the tn3270 protocol is used by terminal emulators.
There is an excellent, free and open source tn3270 emulator that was
originally developed by Sun and is currently maintained.

Look at http://x3270.bgp.nu/

It runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris, and I would suspect most UNIX-like
systems.

There are other 3270 emulators for Windows but as far as I know they are
all proprietary and sell for money.

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Re: [Simh] Mark's mailbox full

[lists]

It might be helpul to post this to comp.os.vms too, since new development
on VMS is in the works and security is high on their list of things to work
on.


On Mon, 10 Aug 2015 15:06:06 +
Armistead, Jason  BIS jason.armist...@otis.com wrote:

 I actually find it interesting how much it reveals about the target
 e-mail and account configuration
 
 We know he's running VMS
 We know he has a disk called $DISK3:
 We know his user space is under $DISK3:[MARK]
 And we know we've successfully filled his disk, thus denying some level
 of service and system functionality
 
 In this era of hackers that feed off this sort of exposed data, I doubt
 any modern mail server would be game to post back so much
 configuration-specific information that could be used to aid in a
 targeted hacking attack.
 
 Cheers
 Jason A
 
 -Original Message-
 From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Alan
 Frisbie Sent: Friday, 7 August 2015 7:33 PM
 To: SIMH@trailing-edge.com
 Subject: [Simh] Mark's mailbox full
 
 If anyone know how to get in touch with Mark Pizzolato outside of email,
 please let him know that he has a disk allocation failure:
 
  This is a report on the delivery status of your message.
  
Message-ID:  15080716022951_...@slug.flying-disk.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] Problem with default builds
  
--Failed delivery to:
Address: MARK+SIMH
Status:  error writing !AS
  
  Reporting-MTA: dns;infocomm.com
  Arrival-Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 15:25:38 -0700
  
  Final-Recipient: x-local;MARK+SIMH
  Action: failed
  Status: 5.2.0 (Other or undefined mailbox status)
  Diagnostic-Code: x-local;error writing !AS  %MAIL-W-WRITEERR, error 
  writing $DISK3:[MARK.MAIL]MAIL.MAI  -RMS-F-FUL, device full 
  (insufficient space for allocation)
  Last-Attempt-Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 15:25:40 -0700
 
 Thanks,
 Alan Frisbie
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Re: [Simh] SimH and multi-core host processors

[lists]

On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 13:01:49 -0700
Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm m...@infocomm.com wrote:

 On Wednesday, July 15, 2015 at 11:14 AM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
  On Wed, 15 Jul 2015 10:21:20 -0700
  Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm m...@infocomm.com wrote:
  
   Simh v3.8-1 did not detect idle for OpenBSD operating systems.  The
   latest github codebase does.  Throttling will probably not be
   necessary anywhere.
  
  Oh that is great news. When will this hit release? Or does that concept
  not apply? I know it's been a while since the last official release.
 
 Given the fact that the current code state is visible to all in the
 github repo, the need for formal releases is significantly lessened.

Yes, I was thinking maybe the concept of an official release didn't apply
but I wanted to ask because I didn't know whether the development sources
were subject to breakage or not. You clarified that:

 The current code is in the best state almost all of the time.

Great news. I'll use that from now on then.

 Issues raised in the github issue system
 (https://github.com/simh/simh/issues) or here on the simh list often are
 fixed quickly and the best code is then available to all.

Thanks to you and everybody working on and contributing to SIMH. It's one
of the few truly portable pieces of code I've seen in a while!

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Re: [Simh] VAX vectors

[lists]

On Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:42:42 +0200
Rhialto rhia...@falu.nl wrote:

 On Fri 10 Jul 2015 at 09:33:56 +, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
  I think you could argue at the beginning System/360 did have things in
  common with what would later be called RISC although z/Architecture has
  overshadowed a lot of that RISC flavor in favor of more specialized
  instructions and addressing modes.
 
 I recall reading that the whole RISC thing was more or less started with
 compiler writes for the 360 noticin that in practice they only used a
 rather limited subset of the available instructions. That got developed
 in hardware in the POWER cpu and later in the POWERPC (PPC).

That is not what I meant, obviously. I'm talking about the approach to the
architecture itself which was very clean, up until z/Architecture anyway.
It used very simple and few addressing modes and a reasonably compact
instruction set. On the other hand there were just the right number of
storage-to-storage instructions to be able to move data around, do
arithmetic from storage to register, and bit operations on storage without
having to load storage to a register first.

 There were no relative addressing modes with offset more than 12 bits.

And we never missed it.

 And even  in the 64-bit z/System there isn't, apparently...

There is a 20 bit signed offset in the Long Displacement Facility
instructions in z/Architecture. But we still don't use it. It is exploited
by the newer compiler versions and sometimes also by newcomers to the
system, not that there are many of those.

 and each instruction has its own different subset of addressing modes it
 works with.

More correctly each instruction may be categorized by the addressing mode
it uses. Each instruction has a proper one-to-one relationship with each
opcode. This is one of many things about that system that makes encoding
and decoding so simple. It is notable virtually all systems software and
all the compilers are still written in assembler (or PL/X, a sort of
PL/I-like high-level assembler with no runtime) on Z.

Another interesting thing is object code and virtually all application code
from the 1960s still runs on the very latest hardware and OS in 2015.

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Re: [Simh] Off topic: ULTRIX question

[lists]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 06:52:18 -0500
Gary Lee Phillips tivo.ov...@gmail.com wrote:

 Thanks Clem and Johnny for at least confirming what I suspected. I
 worked with VMS on Vaxen in the 80s, At the time I wished for an
 opportunity to compare VMS with UNIX on the same hardware. In the 90s
 I worked with UNIX, mostly AIX on RS/6000. Today I mostly use Linux,
 though I have a couple of Alphas in working order. I run OpenVMS and
 Linux on those.
 
 I keep looking for a way to get a real UNIX going, hence the ULTRIX
 experiment. As far as I can tell, neither Tru64 nor HP-UX have any
 kind of hobbyist licensing program available and I am just playing
 with stuff at this point, I was looking for another way to get at UNIX
 here at home.

What about Solaris 10? It's a real UNIX and has real documentation and a
nice toolchain for C/C++/Fortran. It is all free as in beer for use as a
development box. Licensing terms are annoying and unclear but there are no
reports of anybody being skewered for running a Solaris box at home.

SPARC hardware is good, cheap, and plentiful. Can't say the same for power
or air conditioning though. Get earplugs!

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Re: [Simh] Off topic: ULTRIX question

[lists]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 17:20:19 -0500
Gary Lee Phillips tivo.ov...@gmail.com wrote:

 There is still Linux for Alpha, Johnny, though it's beginning to age
 from lack of supporters. Debian for Alpha exists up through Sid I
 think. CentOS also had an Alpha version last time I looked. I have run
 the Debian versions and they pretty much work as they should. I've
 never seen Linux for VAX at all, that's true.

More to like about the VAX...

 I'm not personally concerned with security patches, as my machines are
 not usually on the net at all. I live in a rural area where
 connectivity is costly and not to be wasted. I use the machines mostly
 for mathematical and engineering experiments and personal amusement.
 I'm a radio amateur, and the Alphas are real nice for circuit
 simulations and RF modeling, for instance. Fortran does pretty well
 there. I raised my question because though the unsupported
 distribution tape for ULTRIX 4.0 includes Gnu EMACS as a source
 archive, it was clearly not actually ported or tested (as in, make
 fails immediately despite README claiming otherwise.)

Solaris has a pretty nice Fortran compiler available that covers most of
F2003 in the latest release. And you can build Emacs without much
difficulty using that or the old gcc (4.2.2 I believe) that comes with
Solaris or get a prebuilt copy from someplace like OpenCSW. 

 Since downloading large files is next to impossible here, I try to
 know what I'm getting into before forking over $60 for a set of
 distribution CDs. One of the BSD flavors might suit, but it's very
 difficult to be sure from the descriptions that are offered.

Ask on the mailing lists and if it is something you want to try you can
probably find somebody willing to burn CDs (yep, don't even need a DVD) for
whatever you want.

 Clearly VAX or Alpha aren't exactly high on their priority lists. Current
 pages on both BSD sites link to non-existent pages on HP sites, for
 instance.

Judging from what's going on at HP right now that might be an HP problem
rather than a problem at the sites linking to HP... And you may not be able
to judge what's going on with the platform support based on the web pages.
OpenBSD is a small project and if they have one or two good devs on a
platform they might not have any time to write the doc or fix web pages.
And once the port works it might not get any attention because it simply
doesn't need any. Checking the mirrors for packages for that architecture
is a good way to get an idea if the platform is still alive as far as they
are concerned. Of course if the OS itself is not found for that platform on
the mirrors then chances are it's going to be some work.

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Re: [Simh] Off topic: ULTRIX question

[lists]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 10:04:43 -0500
Gary Lee Phillips tivo.ov...@gmail.com wrote:

 As far as I know, Solaris these days only runs on Intel hardware.

Both Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 run on Intel and SPARC. Solaris 11 doesn't
run on any SPARC hardware sun4v or older IIRC.

 I've tried it there, and it seems to devote way too much processor power
 and memory to making pretty windowed screen displays (a weakness it
 shares with most Linux distributions.)

I have no idea what this means. I have several Solaris Intel boxes and they
run great. One is a fairly heavy duty but old desktop and one is a low-spec
desktop rescued from Windows that has a new lease on life as a file server.
Both these boxes run headless. If you don't want graphics don't use them.
Solaris does support most nVidia cards including some high end stuff.
Performance is excellent and snappy, and memory utilization is low.

I also run Solaris SPARC and if that isn't UNIX heaven I don't know what
is. Not that I am a UNIX fan but if you have to run UNIX then make it
Solaris SPARC...

 I guess I didn't make it clear that I'm looking for UNIX to run on VAX
 or Alpha hardware platforms.

OpenBSD should work. If you are really curious ask on the mailing lists
about your specific hardware. I used to be able to recommend NetBSD but
that was a long time ago. Same thing with FreeBSD. Those two just do not
run on non-Intel hardware the way they used to. Most of the interested
developers appear to have gone to greener pastures.

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Re: [Simh] Off topic: ULTRIX question

[lists]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 14:45:24 +0200
Johnny Billquist b...@softjar.se wrote:

 What is your definition of real Unix? Ultrix is sortof a 
 BSD-derivative. I hope you understand that.

If so and if the OP was aware of that then OpenBSD would be a good option.

 The problem with Ultrix is not documentation, but the fact that it is 
 somewhat different than other Unix clones you might hit upon. Back in 
 the 80s this was a more common phenomenon. Every Unix system was 
 slightly different.
 
 This is why tools like autoconf got created - because it is a pain in 
 the butt to make software that runs on all different styles of Unix.

And it still doesn't work because it's just a theory. No Linux developers
seem to be aware anything besides Linux exists and nobody seems to attempt
to write portable code or actually test it anywhere besides Linux. So those
of us who run alternative OS report the autoconf bugs and gccisms when we
try building gnu crapware on other platforms or with other compilers...

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Re: [Simh] Off topic: ULTRIX question

[lists]

On Mon, 13 Jul 2015 09:18:22 -0400
Patrick Finnegan p...@computer-refuge.org wrote:

 On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 7:08 PM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
 
  On Sun, 12 Jul 2015 17:20:19 -0500
  Gary Lee Phillips tivo.ov...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   There is still Linux for Alpha, Johnny, though it's beginning to age
   from lack of supporters. Debian for Alpha exists up through Sid I
   think. CentOS also had an Alpha version last time I looked. I have run
   the Debian versions and they pretty much work as they should. I've
   never seen Linux for VAX at all, that's true.
 
  More to like about the VAX...
 
 
 Actually, Linux on VAX does exist. http://vax-linux.org/. 

Oh, well, it was a nice thought while it lasted...

 Though, it seems to be mostly abandoned.

Hope springs eternal!

 I've never tried running it on a VAX, but maybe I should sometime.

Maybe you shouldn't but that is entirely up to you, of course.

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Re: [Simh] VAX vectors

[lists]

On Thu, 09 Jul 2015 14:53:21 -0600
Richard legal...@xmission.com wrote:

 
 In article 559ebe8a.2010...@softjar.se,
 Johnny Billquist b...@softjar.se writes:
 
  On 2015-07-09 20:26, Eric Smith wrote:
   Would anyone mind posting a short assembly snippet of a VAX vector
   instruction used in context?
  
   The only complex instruction I've ever used is the Z-80's LDIR.
  
  Even plain old VAX instructions can be way more complex than LDIR. :-)
  There are instructions for polynomial expansion, case instructions,
  move translated strings, and I can't even remember what else...
 
 VAX was pretty much the last CISC-y architecture that sold in any
 sizable units, AFAIK.

IBM z/Architecture is still a multibillion dollar a year seller. It's
certainly the oldest CISC architecture still in production and active
development. As far as sizeable units go, you may be right. IBM has been
careful not to release numbers but we can often guesstimate from product
license counts and the IBM financials.

I think you could argue at the beginning System/360 did have things in
common with what would later be called RISC although z/Architecture has
overshadowed a lot of that RISC flavor in favor of more specialized
instructions and addressing modes.

There are manuals for the Vector Facility for System/370 on bitsavers in
case anybody is interested in how Big Blue did it. The earliest one I saw
was from 1986. Although I worked on several machines that had the vector
facility I did not use it since I was mostly not working with numerical
applications.

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Re: [Simh] simh

[lists+simh]

* On Sat, Mar 14, 2015 at 07:41:30PM -0500, Bill Cunningham 
bill...@suddenlink.net wrote:
Are there any docs about the way simh is constructed? Is it an
 API? I know it emulates CPUs but what else?

There sure are. If you're looking for the technical nitty-gritty, you
can find a document titled Writing a Simulator for the SIMH System
on GitHub here:

https://github.com/simh/simh/blob/master/doc/simh.doc

It's in Microsoft Word format. I was unable to find a PDF version of
the DOC, so I've exported one here, temporarily:

http://www.loomcom.com/junk/simh.pdf

If you're interested in a more academic overview of how SIMH came to
be, you can find it here, in a paper by Maxwell M. Burnet and Robert
M. Supnik, titled Preserving Computing's Past: Restoration and
Simulation:

http://simh.trailing-edge.com/docs/dtjn02pf.pdf

 Bill

-Seth
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[Simh] Is Alpha AXP in SIMH's future?

[lists]

Is an Alpha machine capable of running OpenVMS in SIMH's future? I know
there are several Alpha emulators for Linux and Windows but I really like
SIMH since it runs on pretty much any UNIX-like OS and doesn't depend on
having a 64-bit Linux installed.

Thank you for SIMH.
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Re: [Simh] Getting rsxs to run on the pdp11 emulator

[lists]

Thank you so much for posting this. I haven't tried anything but OpenVMS
VAX under SIMH yet but looking around for what else I could run on it I
found bits and pieces of info scattered all over the net. The most
frustrating thing was finding pages where people wrote to be continued at
the end of a long series of partial sysgens. Talk about a cliffhanger...

It would be great if the SIMH site could consolidate all the successful
sysgens etc. people are doing on various machines so those of us who have
no idea how to get started could do so.


On Tue, 3 Mar 2015 13:05:50 -0500
Christian Gauger-Cosgrove captainkirk...@gmail.com wrote:

[rsx-11m+ sysgen discussion deleted for the sake of brevity]
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Re: [Simh] Is Alpha AXP in SIMH's future?

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On Tue, 3 Mar 2015 09:31:58 -0800
Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm m...@infocomm.com wrote:

 On Tuesday, March 3, 2015 at 9:26 AM, li...@openmailbox.org wrote:
  Is an Alpha machine capable of running OpenVMS in SIMH's future? I know
  there are several Alpha emulators for Linux and Windows but I really
  like SIMH since it runs on pretty much any UNIX-like OS and doesn't
  depend on having a 64-bit Linux installed.
 
 Well, Bob implemented the guts of an Alpha simulator and that code is in
 the current github repository.  
 
 Bob classified this simulator in the 'beta' category, with beta, in this
 case, meaning 'a simulator which hasn't been finished'.
 
 If someone has the ability and interest to get this simulator fully
 working, I'll be here to support those activities.

I wish I could help but sadly I can't since C and I don't get along. Thanks
for the update.

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Re: [Simh] Is Alpha AXP in SIMH's future?

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Hi,

I don't understand (a) unless this is referring specially to Intel. For (b)
I didn't imagine needing so much memory for a guest.

Right now I'm running SIMH on a MIPS III (64 bit) box under OpenBSD and on
Solaris SPARC (sun4u). SIMH builds and runs on everything I have. I don't
use Windows and my Linux box is 32 bit for a few things that don't run
elsewhere. From my view it would be fantastic to have SIMH support an Alpha
emulator because SIMH doesn't require particular hosts.


On Tue, 3 Mar 2015 12:44:03 -0800
Sergey Oboguev obog...@yahoo.com wrote:

 The downside of running a 32-bit version of virtually any AXP simulator
 is that it is bound to be 2-3 times slower than 64-bit version, due to
 
 (a) simulation of AXP 64-bit operations on top of 32-bit host operations,
 
 (b) indirect access to guest memory when it is sized above 2 GB or so
 assuming such an access is implemented at all.
 
 The only exception to (a) would be a 64-bit simulator squeezed into 32-bit
 environment running on 64-bit machine, but this is hardly worth the
 effort.
 
 
 - Original Message -
 From: li...@openmailbox.org li...@openmailbox.org
 To: Simh@trailing-edge.com Simh@trailing-edge.com
 Cc: 
 Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2015 9:25 AM
 Subject: [Simh] Is Alpha AXP in SIMH's future?
 
 Is an Alpha machine capable of running OpenVMS in SIMH's future? I know
 there are several Alpha emulators for Linux and Windows but I really like
 SIMH since it runs on pretty much any UNIX-like OS and doesn't depend on
 having a 64-bit Linux installed.
 
 Thank you for SIMH.
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Re: [Simh] Is Alpha AXP in SIMH's future?

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On Tue, 3 Mar 2015 13:34:51 -0800
Sergey Oboguev obog...@yahoo.com wrote:

 My comment was is not about Intel vs. non-Intel, but about having 64-bit
 as a native type in host machine instructions and leveraged by the
 compiler, rather than simulated by 32-bit host operations.

I thought there was no direct way to do math on 64 bit integers in 32 bit
Intel and simulation by 32 bit host operations (add, adc) would be
required, as opposed to other platforms which (I believe) have instructions
for 64 bit integer math even in 32 bit mode (i.e. SPARC).

 Just consider how let us say LDQ or ADDQ would actually be implemented
 in each of the respective cases.

Looking further MIPS seems to have the same limitation as Intel so I must
have remembered this wrong and SPARC is the exception rather than the rule.
Sorry for the tangent.


 
 
 From: li...@openmailbox.org li...@openmailbox.org
 To: Simh@trailing-edge.com Simh@trailing-edge.com 
 Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2015 12:56 PM
 Subject: Re: [Simh] Is Alpha AXP in SIMH's future?
 
 
 Hi,
 
 I don't understand (a) unless this is referring specially to Intel. For
 (b) I didn't imagine needing so much memory for a guest.
 
 Right now I'm running SIMH on a MIPS III (64 bit) box under OpenBSD and on
 Solaris SPARC (sun4u). SIMH builds and runs on everything I have. I don't
 use Windows and my Linux box is 32 bit for a few things that don't run
 elsewhere. From my view it would be fantastic to have SIMH support an
 Alpha emulator because SIMH doesn't require particular hosts.
 
 
 On Tue, 3 Mar 2015 12:44:03 -0800
 Sergey Oboguev obog...@yahoo.com wrote:
 
  The downside of running a 32-bit version of virtually any AXP simulator
  is that it is bound to be 2-3 times slower than 64-bit version, due to
  
  (a) simulation of AXP 64-bit operations on top of 32-bit host
  operations,
  
  (b) indirect access to guest memory when it is sized above 2 GB or so
  assuming such an access is implemented at all.
  
  The only exception to (a) would be a 64-bit simulator squeezed into
  32-bit environment running on 64-bit machine, but this is hardly worth
  the effort.
  
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