Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Peter Allan]

Hi Ray,

You make have made the same "minor mistake" that I just did. The VAX8200 is
on a branch called vax820, so you need to do "git checkout vax820" (on
Linux) first.

Once I did that, it built just fine.

Cheers

Peter Allan

On Sun, 7 Apr 2019 at 11:19, Matt Burke  wrote:

> On 07/04/2019 02:18, Ray Jewhurst wrote:
> > What is the simulator called in the Makefile?  I cannot seem to find
> > either a vax8200 or vax820.
> >
>
> The target is called vax820. It's defined here:
>
> https://github.com/9track/simh/blob/vax820/makefile#L2059
>
> There is also a project file included for Visual Studio. I realise now
> though that I forgot to add vax820 to the descrip.mms file for VMS.
>
> Matt
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Matt Burke]

On 07/04/2019 02:18, Ray Jewhurst wrote:
> What is the simulator called in the Makefile?  I cannot seem to find
> either a vax8200 or vax820.
>

The target is called vax820. It's defined here:

https://github.com/9track/simh/blob/vax820/makefile#L2059

There is also a project file included for Visual Studio. I realise now
though that I forgot to add vax820 to the descrip.mms file for VMS.

Matt
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Ray Jewhurst]

What is the simulator called in the Makefile?  I cannot seem to find either
a vax8200 or vax820.

On Sat, Apr 6, 2019 at 1:21 PM Matt Burke  wrote:

> Here is a new simulator for the VAX 8200/8250 systems. Most of the key
> features are there including the DWBUA BI-Unibus adapter which allows
> all the existing Unibus devices to be used. The console RX50 is also
> implemented.
>
> The console processor is not simulated so it uses the same VMB trick as
> the VAX-11/7xx simulators i.e. you boot directly from a device "boot
> rq0" rather than "boot cpu".
>
> You can get the code from:
>
> https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/vax820
>
> And Windows executable from:
>
> http://www.9track.net/simh/vax820
>
> Please try it out and let me know how you get on.
>
>
> Matt
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Bob Supnik]

The 8200 (V11) doesn't have a console processor; the console is 
implemented in microcode (as in the F11/J11) and some macrocode (as in 
MicroVAX II). That's one of the reasons the V11's microstore was 15KW, 
plus a 1 KW patch store, and MicroVAX II's was 1.6KW, with no patch 
store. (The other drivers of V11 microword consumption were the string, 
decimal, and soft floating instructions.) V11 and MicroVAX II have 
essentially identical microwords, although the capabilities of the main 
data path differ slightly, particularly around shifting.


I did not work on the V11 microcode directly. Close to release, when it 
was clear that the patch store would be half empty, I developed a patch 
to optimize CALL/RET using techniques lifted from the 8800 (Nautilus) 
microcode; these were also included in CVAX. I don't have a listing of 
the V11 microcode.


/Bob

On 4/6/2019 6:14 PM, simh-requ...@trailing-edge.com wrote:

Message: 2
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2019 18:20:37 +0100
From: Matt Burke
To: Simh Trailing-Edge Mailing List
Subject: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250
Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Here is a new simulator for the VAX 8200/8250 systems. Most of the key
features are there including the DWBUA BI-Unibus adapter which allows
all the existing Unibus devices to be used. The console RX50 is also
implemented.

The console processor is not simulated so it uses the same VMB trick as
the VAX-11/7xx simulators i.e. you boot directly from a device "boot
rq0" rather than "boot cpu".

You can get the code from:

https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/vax820

And Windows executable from:

http://www.9track.net/simh/vax820

Please try it out and let me know how you get on.


Matt


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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2019-04-07 01:14, Matt Burke wrote:

On 06/04/2019 23:50, Timothy Stark wrote:

Does simh use threads to handle MP processors?  I have other SIMH versions 
(vaxmp and turbovax) that uses threads to take advantage of CPU cores.

I looked through your 782 code and did not see any threads handle that vaxmp 
and turbovax uses.


For the VAX 8300/8350 I just run both processors in the same thread and
alternate between them on each instruction cycle. Things get a lot more
complicated when threads are involved because you have to think about
locking and synchronisation.

The VAX-11/782 is quite different as you actually run two separate
copies of the VAX-11/780 simulator and they communicate with each other
using a shared memory interconnect (simulated by shared memory on the
host operating system). One VAX-11/780 runs as the master and this is
the one that you interact with. It has access to all the I/O devices
such as disks/tapes. The other VAX-11/780 is non-interactive and can
only process workloads which are handed over from the master. This is
asymmetric multiprocessing.


Unless you also have some synchronization mechanisms in there, this 
might not actually work right, but it can take time for issues to show 
up. Some VAX instructions can be rather complex, and are guaranteed to 
be atomic to memory. I believe that holds true also on the 11/782, which 
means that instructions like the interlocked queue instructions will not 
naturally be interlocked if you just have two threads with shared memory 
for a simulation. And so, you run the risk that if both CPUs would want 
to modify the same data interlocked, the simulation will actually end up 
corrupting memory. But this is probably a rare occurrence, so chances 
are that you have gotten away with it, even if you don't do proper 
interlocking.


  Johnny

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Matt Burke]

On 06/04/2019 23:50, Timothy Stark wrote:
> Does simh use threads to handle MP processors?  I have other SIMH versions 
> (vaxmp and turbovax) that uses threads to take advantage of CPU cores. 
>
> I looked through your 782 code and did not see any threads handle that vaxmp 
> and turbovax uses.
>
For the VAX 8300/8350 I just run both processors in the same thread and
alternate between them on each instruction cycle. Things get a lot more
complicated when threads are involved because you have to think about
locking and synchronisation.

The VAX-11/782 is quite different as you actually run two separate
copies of the VAX-11/780 simulator and they communicate with each other
using a shared memory interconnect (simulated by shared memory on the
host operating system). One VAX-11/780 runs as the master and this is
the one that you interact with. It has access to all the I/O devices
such as disks/tapes. The other VAX-11/780 is non-interactive and can
only process workloads which are handed over from the master. This is
asymmetric multiprocessing.

Matt
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Timothy Stark]

Ok, I now got it.  Yes, you are right about too much global data in SIMH that 
is not good design for multiprocessors. 

Tim

-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist
Sent: Saturday, April 6, 2019 6:43 PM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

On 2019-04-06 22:28, Timothy Stark wrote:
> I was surprised to see that!  Very good news!!  Good job!  I will try that 
> soon.
> 
> For 8250/8350, you need two MP processors.  Does vax820 emulate two MP 
> processors like VAX-11/782?

The 8250 multiprocessor uses VAXBI for interconnection, and it's a symmetric 
multiprocessor system.
The VAX-11/782 was a very different beast with shared memory, and asymmetric 
multiprocessing.

But as far as I know, simh supports neither, as it don't really manage multiple 
processors that easily in general. Too much global data, if I remember right.

   Johnny

> 
> Tim
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Simh  On Behalf Of Matt Burke
> Sent: Saturday, April 6, 2019 1:21 PM
> To: Simh Trailing-Edge Mailing List 
> Subject: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250
> 
> Here is a new simulator for the VAX 8200/8250 systems. Most of the key 
> features are there including the DWBUA BI-Unibus adapter which allows all the 
> existing Unibus devices to be used. The console RX50 is also implemented.
> 
> The console processor is not simulated so it uses the same VMB trick as the 
> VAX-11/7xx simulators i.e. you boot directly from a device "boot rq0" rather 
> than "boot cpu".
> 
> You can get the code from:
> 
> https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/vax820
> 
> And Windows executable from:
> 
> http://www.9track.net/simh/vax820
> 
> Please try it out and let me know how you get on.
> 
> 
> Matt
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   ||  on a psychedelic trip
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Timothy Stark]

Does simh use threads to handle MP processors?  I have other SIMH versions 
(vaxmp and turbovax) that uses threads to take advantage of CPU cores. 

I looked through your 782 code and did not see any threads handle that vaxmp 
and turbovax uses.

Tim

-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Matt Burke
Sent: Saturday, April 6, 2019 6:18 PM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

On 06/04/2019 21:28, Timothy Stark wrote:
> I was surprised to see that!  Very good news!!  Good job!  I will try that 
> soon.
>
> For 8250/8350, you need two MP processors.  Does vax820 emulate two MP 
> processors like VAX-11/782?
>
No, but I have got another branch which does. It's a fairly nasty hack just to 
test the theory. Basically the two processors are run in lock-step and it 
saves/restores the context of each CPU between instruction cycles. There's a 
lot of overhead in that so the performance is quite poor once you start the 
secondary CPU.

Bob Supnik created a simulator for the SiCortex SC1 several years ago which 
shows a better way to do multiple processors in lock-step but that would 
involve significant changes to the VAX CPU and MMU modules.

Matt
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2019-04-06 22:28, Timothy Stark wrote:

I was surprised to see that!  Very good news!!  Good job!  I will try that soon.

For 8250/8350, you need two MP processors.  Does vax820 emulate two MP 
processors like VAX-11/782?


The 8250 multiprocessor uses VAXBI for interconnection, and it's a 
symmetric multiprocessor system.
The VAX-11/782 was a very different beast with shared memory, and 
asymmetric multiprocessing.


But as far as I know, simh supports neither, as it don't really manage 
multiple processors that easily in general. Too much global data, if I 
remember right.


  Johnny



Tim

-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Matt Burke
Sent: Saturday, April 6, 2019 1:21 PM
To: Simh Trailing-Edge Mailing List 
Subject: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

Here is a new simulator for the VAX 8200/8250 systems. Most of the key features 
are there including the DWBUA BI-Unibus adapter which allows all the existing 
Unibus devices to be used. The console RX50 is also implemented.

The console processor is not simulated so it uses the same VMB trick as the VAX-11/7xx simulators 
i.e. you boot directly from a device "boot rq0" rather than "boot cpu".

You can get the code from:

https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/vax820

And Windows executable from:

http://www.9track.net/simh/vax820

Please try it out and let me know how you get on.


Matt
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  ||  on a psychedelic trip
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Matt Burke]

On 06/04/2019 21:28, Timothy Stark wrote:
> I was surprised to see that!  Very good news!!  Good job!  I will try that 
> soon.
>
> For 8250/8350, you need two MP processors.  Does vax820 emulate two MP 
> processors like VAX-11/782?
>
No, but I have got another branch which does. It's a fairly nasty hack
just to test the theory. Basically the two processors are run in
lock-step and it saves/restores the context of each CPU between
instruction cycles. There's a lot of overhead in that so the performance
is quite poor once you start the secondary CPU.

Bob Supnik created a simulator for the SiCortex SC1 several years ago
which shows a better way to do multiple processors in lock-step but that
would involve significant changes to the VAX CPU and MMU modules.

Matt
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Timothy Stark]

I was surprised to see that!  Very good news!!  Good job!  I will try that soon.

For 8250/8350, you need two MP processors.  Does vax820 emulate two MP 
processors like VAX-11/782?

Tim

-Original Message-
From: Simh  On Behalf Of Matt Burke
Sent: Saturday, April 6, 2019 1:21 PM
To: Simh Trailing-Edge Mailing List 
Subject: [Simh] VAX 8200/8250

Here is a new simulator for the VAX 8200/8250 systems. Most of the key features 
are there including the DWBUA BI-Unibus adapter which allows all the existing 
Unibus devices to be used. The console RX50 is also implemented.

The console processor is not simulated so it uses the same VMB trick as the 
VAX-11/7xx simulators i.e. you boot directly from a device "boot rq0" rather 
than "boot cpu".

You can get the code from:

https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/vax820

And Windows executable from:

http://www.9track.net/simh/vax820

Please try it out and let me know how you get on.


Matt
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[Simh] VAX 8200/8250

[Matt Burke]

Here is a new simulator for the VAX 8200/8250 systems. Most of the key
features are there including the DWBUA BI-Unibus adapter which allows
all the existing Unibus devices to be used. The console RX50 is also
implemented.

The console processor is not simulated so it uses the same VMB trick as
the VAX-11/7xx simulators i.e. you boot directly from a device "boot
rq0" rather than "boot cpu".

You can get the code from:

https://github.com/9track/simh/tree/vax820

And Windows executable from:

http://www.9track.net/simh/vax820

Please try it out and let me know how you get on.


Matt
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Pontus Pihlgren]

Anders generously donated this machine to me. I think it currently has 
three CPUs.

It sounds like there are a few running 8350 machines out there. But if 
the simh works requires another one I could bump it up the TODO-list.

/P

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 09:57:12PM +0100, Anders Magnusson wrote:
> I can note here that we ran a 4-CPU 8350 (8354? :-)  with Ultrix. Worked
> very well!
> 
> This was also the machine which I used when writing the NetBSD vax SMP
> support.
> 
> -- Ragge
> 
> Den 2017-03-16 kl. 21:17, skrev Dan Gahlinger:
> >the vax smp emulator seems to support that theory.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >Dan
> >
> >
> > Original message 
> >From: Robert Armstrong <b...@jfcl.com>
> >Date: 2017-03-16 4:07 PM (GMT-05:00)
> >To: 'Ethan Dicks' <ethan.di...@gmail.com>, simh@trailing-edge.com
> >Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200
> >
> >> Ethan Dicks (ethan.di...@gmail.com) wrote:
> >>I happen to have one (from when I worked for Jim Ebright).
> >
> >  I have a running 8350 as well, should you need a dump of the console
> >media or something.
> >
> >  It is, I believe, the physically smallest BI bus VAX, and therefore
> >interesting for those reason.  It's the only such machine that I could fit
> >in my garage :-)
> >
> >  It's also the only multi-processor VAX system that I have and equally
> >interesting for that reason too.  FWIW, I've always wondered if the
> >limitation to two CPUs was purely for testing and support reasons - it
> >doesn't seem that there's any reason why you could not plug in three or
> >even more CPU cards.
> >
> >Bob Armstrong
> >
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Dan Gahlinger]

Doesn't ODS2 tool work with these?



From: Simh <simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com> on behalf of Bob Eager 
<r...@tavi.co.uk>
Sent: March 20, 2017 4:25 PM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

That is correct. The 360kB drives are only 40 track. The 1.2MB drives
are 80 track.

On Mon, 20 Mar 2017 13:53:57 -0600
khandy21yo <khandy2...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think  you need 1.2M floppy drives for this. I seem to remember
> THAT 360k drives don't work for reading RX50s.
>
>
> Sent from my Galaxy Tab® A
>  Original message From: Paul Koning
> <paulkon...@comcast.net> Date: 3/20/17  6:45 AM  (GMT-07:00) To:
> Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com> Cc: SIMH <simh@trailing-edge.com>
> Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200
>
> > On Mar 19, 2017, at 11:33 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > ...
> > I have a number of ways to read RX50s, but nothing is presently set
> > up and plugged in for that.  I'll have to dust something off and
> > get it going.
>
> PCs can read RX50s if you have a 5.25 inch drive.  DOS, or old enough
> versions of Windows that you can issue BIOS calls work.  On Linux,
> you can set the floppy parameters to 80 tracks, 10 sectors, single
> sided, and then standard utilities like dd will work.  If you have a
> floppy image you may need to process the interleaving to get to an
> image other file system utilities will handle.
>
> My FLX utility (on my Subversion server or in simhtools) can do
> this.  I have a newer version in Python that can be used as a
> library, and includes an interleave/de-interleave tool.
>
>paul
>
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Bob Eager]

That is correct. The 360kB drives are only 40 track. The 1.2MB drives
are 80 track.

On Mon, 20 Mar 2017 13:53:57 -0600
khandy21yo <khandy2...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I think  you need 1.2M floppy drives for this. I seem to remember
> THAT 360k drives don't work for reading RX50s.
> 
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Tab® A
>  Original message From: Paul Koning
> <paulkon...@comcast.net> Date: 3/20/17  6:45 AM  (GMT-07:00) To:
> Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com> Cc: SIMH <simh@trailing-edge.com>
> Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200 
> 
> > On Mar 19, 2017, at 11:33 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > ...
> > I have a number of ways to read RX50s, but nothing is presently set
> > up and plugged in for that.  I'll have to dust something off and
> > get it going.
> 
> PCs can read RX50s if you have a 5.25 inch drive.  DOS, or old enough
> versions of Windows that you can issue BIOS calls work.  On Linux,
> you can set the floppy parameters to 80 tracks, 10 sectors, single
> sided, and then standard utilities like dd will work.  If you have a
> floppy image you may need to process the interleaving to get to an
> image other file system utilities will handle.
> 
> My FLX utility (on my Subversion server or in simhtools) can do
> this.  I have a newer version in Python that can be used as a
> library, and includes an interleave/de-interleave tool.
> 
>   paul
> 
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[khandy21yo]

I think  you need 1.2M floppy drives for this. I seem to remember THAT 360k 
drives don't work for reading RX50s.


Sent from my Galaxy Tab® A
 Original message From: Paul Koning <paulkon...@comcast.net> 
Date: 3/20/17  6:45 AM  (GMT-07:00) To: Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com> Cc: 
SIMH <simh@trailing-edge.com> Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200 

> On Mar 19, 2017, at 11:33 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ...
> I have a number of ways to read RX50s, but nothing is presently set up
> and plugged in for that.  I'll have to dust something off and get it
> going.

PCs can read RX50s if you have a 5.25 inch drive.  DOS, or old enough versions 
of Windows that you can issue BIOS calls work.  On Linux, you can set the 
floppy parameters to 80 tracks, 10 sectors, single sided, and then standard 
utilities like dd will work.  If you have a floppy image you may need to 
process the interleaving to get to an image other file system utilities will 
handle.

My FLX utility (on my Subversion server or in simhtools) can do this.  I have a 
newer version in Python that can be used as a library, and includes an 
interleave/de-interleave tool.

paul

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Ethan Dicks]

On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 8:45 AM, Paul Koning  wrote:
>> I have a number of ways to read RX50s, but nothing is presently set up...
>
> PCs can read RX50s if you have a 5.25 inch drive.  DOS, or old enough 
> versions of Windows that you can issue BIOS calls work.

I have a DOS 486 I used to use for this.  Its VLB I/O card toasted a
while back and I haven't replaced it/rebuilt the box.  One future plan
for this box is to add an 8" drive to it.

>  On Linux, you can set the floppy parameters to 80 tracks, 10 sectors, single 
> sided, and then standard utilities
> like dd will work.

I'm mostly running from laptops these days (my primary two boxes are a
MacBook Pro w/OS X, and a Dell Laptop w/Linux Mint).  I have zero
desktop boxes set up and running with any floppy drives.

As I said, I have to dust something off.  Right now, the shortest path
is plugging in a MicroPDP-11 and using vtserver.

-ethan
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 11:03 PM, Tim Stark  wrote:
> KA820 technical manual have a listing of boot ROM for RX50 and KDA50.   Does 
> anyone have a copy of EEPROM image? Can someone make a dump of console media 
> disks?

I dug out my RX50s that are with the 8200...  I found:

Copy of BL-FG80P-ME "VAX 8200 UTIL PROG FLP"
Copy of "VAX 8200 uCODE / CPU REV 5, patch 21"
Copy of "VAX 8200 uCODE / CPU REV 4, patch 29"
Original label BL-FG81F-ME "VAX 8200/8300 Console FLP" (but I won't
swear the contents are 100% original.  It's probable that some files
were added or edited).

IIRC, I made copies of the uCODE from each CPU I had before
overwriting the REV 4 board with REV 5.  This was approx 25 years ago,
but not obliterating the old data before overwriting it is something I
definitely would have done.   The point was to get them the same so
they would work together, and I wouldn't have cared which way it went
as long as it worked.

I have a number of ways to read RX50s, but nothing is presently set up
and plugged in for that.  I'll have to dust something off and get it
going.

-ethan
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Mark Pizzolato]

The programmatic method Rick provided (and Tim suggested enhancements to) is 
perfect when you’ve got a working system that has the necessary pieces to run 
VMS.

Meanwhile, there may be systems which no longer have enough working pieces to 
actually run any program to extract the ROM contents, or the only OS they have 
access to on local storage isn’t VMS.

As long as the system runs well enough to get to the >>> prompt on the system 
console, the console itself can be used to extract the ROM contents.  For 
example, the MicroVAX 3900’s ROM is at 2004 and is 128Kb (0x2) in 
length (which is 0x8000 Longwords).

To display the whole ROM contents from the console prompt:

  >>> E /N:7FFF 2004
 P 2004 FE112211
 P 20040004 01530302
 P 20040008 00038931
   […]
 P 2005FFF8 
 P 2005FFFC 
  >>>

Capturing the console session’s content and manipulating the captured text into 
a binary ROM image is left as a programming exercise.

Some systems may not have the /N:nnn option in the console command language.   
Those would be reduced to explicit E commands for each longword of the ROM:

  >>>E 2004
 P 2004 FE112211
  >>>e
 P 20040004 01530302
  >>>e
 P 20040008 00038931
   Etc…




-  Mark

From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Timothe Litt
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2017 4:39 AM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200


Don't be discouraged from posting.  Nothing wrong with a quick hack.  They do 
tend to have a longer than intended life, and considering the range of 
experience on the list, I thought it worth taking a couple of minutes to 
suggest a more robust implementation.

I did restrain myself and did not point out how to provide command line 
arguments (foreign or DCL command table), create a VMS help file, 
internationalize messages or build a VMSINSTAL (or PCSI) kit :-) It is, after 
all, a QUICK hack...

Later hardware uses FLASH parts, which aren't socketed (well, very rarely), so 
even for people who have the hardware skills to remove ROMs, there's a future 
use for a utility.  Plus, it works in simulation :-)


On 18-Mar-17 21:01, Rick Murphy wrote:

On 3/18/2017 12:23 PM, Timothe Litt wrote:


Even though someone found a utility for the 8200, a program like this is handy 
for other machines (and device roms).

A good outline of the essentials of PFN (and file) mapping, but for general 
use...
Timothe, well spotted (I actually noticed the lack of $close when posted, and 
said, oh well... it does the job.)
However, remind me to never post any quick hack here ever again. :)

This was used to pull an image of the ROM, initially to probe the code with VMS 
PATCH, eventually to dupe the ROM. In the end, it was easier to just pull the 
ROMs and duplicate them.
-Rick

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Tim Stark]

Yeah. That is good ROM dump utility for other VAX systems when a copy of ROM 
images are not available for future emulators.

 

That’s why I can’t find firmwares for VAX 4000, VAX 6000, and VAX 8500-8800 
that I googled for so far.

 

Thanks,

Tim

 

From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Rick Murphy
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2017 11:48 AM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

 

On 3/16/2017 11:53 PM, Robert Armstrong wrote:

>Under VMS, PFN map a section to the EEPROM, copy it to normal memory & write 
>it to disk.

  Um, fair enough.  I don’t suppose someone has a program already written to do 
this?  

  I could have easily done that about ten or fifteen years ago, and in theory I 
still can, but it’ll probably take an afternoon with the VMS manuals to 
remember how :)

Here's an example, which I wrote for the MicroVAX. Took me a bit to find this.

The program creates a file called ROM.EXE and copies the boot ROM into that 
file.
Note the "vbn=#<^X2004/512>"  line - that says that 
the ROM is mapped into physical address 2004 on that system. Likely 
different for others. Size of the ROM is calculated by the "page_count" 
variable.
-Rick

.title  copyrom - Copy the rom
.psect  datard, wrt, nopic, noshr, noexe, long
.library/sys$Library:lib/
$iouv2def
$secdef
.psect  datard, wrt, nopic, noshr, noexe, long

page_count = ^X1/^X200

file_fab:   $FABALQ=page_count,-
FAC=<GET,PUT>,-
FNM=,-
FOP=UFO

p1_space:   .quad   0

copy_sec_base:  .long   0
.long   0

rom_sec_base:   .long   0
.long   0
buf_descr:  .long   80
.addressbuffer
buffer: .blkb   80

format: .ascid  /Checksum is !XW/

.psect  coderd, nowrt, pic, noshr, exe, long

.entry  go, ^m<>

$create fab=file_fab
blbsr0, 10$
ret

10$:$crmpsc_s   inadr=p1_space,-
retadr=copy_sec_base,-
flags=#<sec$m_expreg!sec$m_wrt>,-
chan=file_fab+fab$l_stv
blbsr0, 20$
ret

20$:$crmpsc_s   inadr=p1_space,-
retadr=rom_sec_base,-
flags=#<sec$m_expreg!sec$m_pfnmap>,-
pagcnt=#page_count,-
vbn=#<^X2004/512>
blbsr0, 30$
ret
30$:movlrom_sec_base, r0
movlcopy_sec_base, r1
movl#^x1/2, r2
40$:movw(r0)+, (r1)+
sobgtr  r2, 40$
movl#1,r0
ret
.endgo

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Timothe Litt]

Don't be discouraged from posting.  Nothing wrong with a quick hack. 
They do tend to have a longer than intended life, and considering the
range of experience on the list, I thought it worth taking a couple of
minutes to suggest a more robust implementation.

I did restrain myself and did not point out how to provide command line
arguments (foreign or DCL command table), create a VMS help file,
internationalize messages or build a VMSINSTAL (or PCSI) kit :-) It is,
after all, a QUICK hack...

Later hardware uses FLASH parts, which aren't socketed (well, very
rarely), so even for people who have the hardware skills to remove ROMs,
there's a future use for a utility.  Plus, it works in simulation :-)


On 18-Mar-17 21:01, Rick Murphy wrote:
> On 3/18/2017 12:23 PM, Timothe Litt wrote:
>>
>> Even though someone found a utility for the 8200, a program like this
>> is handy for other machines (and device roms).
>>
>> A good outline of the essentials of PFN (and file) mapping, but for
>> general use...
>>
> Timothe, well spotted (I actually noticed the lack of $close when
> posted, and said, oh well... it does the job.)
> However, remind me to never post any quick hack here ever again. :)
>
> This was used to pull an image of the ROM, initially to probe the code
> with VMS PATCH, eventually to dupe the ROM. In the end, it was easier
> to just pull the ROMs and duplicate them.
> -Rick
>



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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Rick Murphy]

On 3/18/2017 12:23 PM, Timothe Litt wrote:


Even though someone found a utility for the 8200, a program like this 
is handy for other machines (and device roms).


A good outline of the essentials of PFN (and file) mapping, but for 
general use...


Timothe, well spotted (I actually noticed the lack of $close when 
posted, and said, oh well... it does the job.)

However, remind me to never post any quick hack here ever again. :)

This was used to pull an image of the ROM, initially to probe the code 
with VMS PATCH, eventually to dupe the ROM. In the end, it was easier to 
just pull the ROMs and duplicate them.

-Rick

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Timothe Litt]

Even though someone found a utility for the 8200, a program like this is
handy for other machines (and device roms).

A good outline of the essentials of PFN (and file) mapping, but for
general use...

You neither compute the checksum hinted at by "format" (and "buffer"),
nor do you $FAO or output it.  Also, the movw @ 40$: (and the /2 above)
may  want to be movl /4; most VAX do longword fetches for i-stream; as I
mentioned previously, word reads from I/O space may or may not be
supported on a given platform/address.   Note that the "checksum" is
more often a CRC-32 than a 16-bit quantity.

You don't need $iouv2def for this,nor lib.mlb.(I expect that you
borrowed code from something that did.)

I recommend an explicit $close of the file, which can provide the exit
status.  And .BIN would be a better file extension than .exe (since
you're not writing an executable file.) 

Finally, the count at 40$ -1L and the 'page_count' symbol ought to be
functions of something like "rom_length" so they stay consistent.  e.g.
rom_length = ^X1; page_count = /512; loop_count =
rom_length / (2 or 4);

Have fun.

On 18-Mar-17 11:47, Rick Murphy wrote:
> On 3/16/2017 11:53 PM, Robert Armstrong wrote:
>>
>> >Under VMS, PFN map a section to the EEPROM, copy it to normal memory
>> & write it to disk.
>>
>>   Um, fair enough.  I don’t suppose someone has a program already
>> written to do this? 
>>
>>   I could have easily done that about ten or fifteen years ago, and
>> in theory I still can, but it’ll probably take an afternoon with the
>> VMS manuals to remember how J
>>
> Here's an example, which I wrote for the MicroVAX. Took me a bit to
> find this.
>
> The program creates a file called ROM.EXE and copies the boot ROM into
> that file.
> Note the "vbn=#<^X2004/512>"  line - that
> says that the ROM is mapped into physical address 2004 on that
> system. Likely different for others. Size of the ROM is calculated by
> the "page_count" variable.
> -Rick
>
> .title  copyrom - Copy the rom
> .psect  datard, wrt, nopic, noshr, noexe, long
> .library/sys$Library:lib/
> $iouv2def
> $secdef
> .psect  datard, wrt, nopic, noshr, noexe, long
>
> page_count = ^X1/^X200
>
> file_fab:   $FABALQ=page_count,-
> FAC=,-
> FNM=,-
> FOP=UFO
>
> p1_space:   .quad   0
>
> copy_sec_base:  .long   0
> .long   0
>
> rom_sec_base:   .long   0
> .long   0
> buf_descr:  .long   80
> .addressbuffer
> buffer: .blkb   80
>
> format: .ascid  /Checksum is !XW/
>
> .psect  coderd, nowrt, pic, noshr, exe, long
>
> .entry  go, ^m<>
>
> $create fab=file_fab
> blbsr0, 10$
> ret
>
> 10$:$crmpsc_s   inadr=p1_space,-
> retadr=copy_sec_base,-
> flags=#,-
> chan=file_fab+fab$l_stv
> blbsr0, 20$
> ret
>
> 20$:$crmpsc_s   inadr=p1_space,-
> retadr=rom_sec_base,-
> flags=#,-
> pagcnt=#page_count,-
> vbn=#<^X2004/512>
> blbsr0, 30$
> ret
> 30$:movlrom_sec_base, r0
> movlcopy_sec_base, r1
> movl#^x1/2, r2
> 40$:movw(r0)+, (r1)+
> sobgtr  r2, 40$
> movl#1,r0
> ret
> .endgo
>
>



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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Rick Murphy]

On 3/16/2017 11:53 PM, Robert Armstrong wrote:


>Under VMS, PFN map a section to the EEPROM, copy it to normal memory & 
write it to disk.


Um, fair enough.  I don’t suppose someone has a program already 
written to do this?


  I could have easily done that about ten or fifteen years ago, and in 
theory I still can, but it’ll probably take an afternoon with the VMS 
manuals to remember how J


Here's an example, which I wrote for the MicroVAX. Took me a bit to find 
this.


The program creates a file called ROM.EXE and copies the boot ROM into 
that file.
Note the "vbn=#<^X2004/512>"  line - that 
says that the ROM is mapped into physical address 2004 on that 
system. Likely different for others. Size of the ROM is calculated by 
the "page_count" variable.

-Rick

.title  copyrom - Copy the rom
.psect  datard, wrt, nopic, noshr, noexe, long
.library/sys$Library:lib/
$iouv2def
$secdef
.psect  datard, wrt, nopic, noshr, noexe, long

page_count = ^X1/^X200

file_fab:   $FABALQ=page_count,-
FAC=,-
FNM=,-
FOP=UFO

p1_space:   .quad   0

copy_sec_base:  .long   0
.long   0

rom_sec_base:   .long   0
.long   0
buf_descr:  .long   80
.addressbuffer
buffer: .blkb   80

format: .ascid  /Checksum is !XW/

.psect  coderd, nowrt, pic, noshr, exe, long

.entry  go, ^m<>

$create fab=file_fab
blbsr0, 10$
ret

10$:$crmpsc_s   inadr=p1_space,-
retadr=copy_sec_base,-
flags=#,-
chan=file_fab+fab$l_stv
blbsr0, 20$
ret

20$:$crmpsc_s   inadr=p1_space,-
retadr=rom_sec_base,-
flags=#,-
pagcnt=#page_count,-
vbn=#<^X2004/512>
blbsr0, 30$
ret
30$:movlrom_sec_base, r0
movlcopy_sec_base, r1
movl#^x1/2, r2
40$:movw(r0)+, (r1)+
sobgtr  r2, 40$
movl#1,r0
ret
.endgo
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Tim Stark]

Bob,

Yeah.  Please let us know they are available for downloads.  I still need them. 
 
Thanks,
Tim

-Original Message-
From: Robert Armstrong [mailto:b...@jfcl.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2017 5:44 PM
To: simh@trailing-edge.com
Cc: 'Tim Stark' <fswo...@verizon.net>
Subject: RE: [Simh] VAX 8200

  I fired up the 8350 today and (amazingly!) it still works.  Sadly some of my 
disk drives are not so well off, but I was still able to boot it.  I've imaged 
the console RX50, which is an RT11 file system, and the two diagnostic floppies 
("DIAG SUPER" and "UTIL").  Those last two are in Files-11 format.  FWIW, the 
DIAG UTIL floppy contains an image of the EEPROM as copied by the DEC 
diagnostic program.

  I've converted all three diskettes to simh RX50 image files, which I presume 
is the most useful format.  Where would be a good place to archive them for the 
82xx/83xx simulator project?

  BTW, if anybody has any RA7x drives that they'd be willing to part with, 
please let me know.  I'll be eternally in your debt!  Two of the three drives I 
have on that machine appear to have died since I last used it.  Sadly, keeping 
the electronics running is not nearly as hard as keeping the mechanical parts 
going...

Bob

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[khandy21yo]

It's also fun if they install a tape into the tk50 drive with the info pamphlet 
that they always shipped with them. It couldn't retract the tape, and you 
couldn't pull the paper out because of the tight fit. Time to disassemble the 
drive, again.


Sent from my Galaxy Tab® A
 Original message From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com> 
Date: 3/17/17  1:21 PM  (GMT-07:00) To: simh@trailing-edge.com Subject: Re: 
[Simh] VAX 8200 
On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Gary Lee Phillips <tivo.ov...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Looking at what images I can find on the web, TU-80 seems correct. The one
> we had was just generally flaky, I guess. It was 1600 bpi, 2400 foot tapes,
> yes.

2400' tapes (1.5mil thickness) were standard but sometime later,
thinner (1.0 mil?) 3600' tapes came out.  I have read tape drive
instructions that say not to use those tapes in this machine.  I
wouldn't be surprised if most DEC tape drives didn't like thinner
tape.

> The MicroVAX we added later came with a TK-50 that never had any problems.

That was not a universal experience.  We had a couple of TK-50 drives
and we found them semi-reliable.  They mostly worked, but we had
occasional spectacular problems.  I had to dismantle the drive more
than once to manually rewind a tape back into the tape case.  We also
lost a few of the pickup barbs.  I have a fresh NOS one - I need to
CAD it up and experiment with various plastic films to see about
lasering some replacements.  Once the tip bends, it needs to be
replaced or it will fail at some random but inconvenient time.

-ethan
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2017-03-17 19:35, Gary Lee Phillips wrote:

Looking at what images I can find on the web, TU-80 seems correct. The
one we had was just generally flaky, I guess. It was 1600 bpi, 2400 foot
tapes, yes.


1600 bpi would definitely be the TU80 then.


The MicroVAX we added later came with a TK-50 that never had any
problems. That came in when a second unrelated project was added that
required a VAX because code for it was written by a partner company that
used DEC equipment exclusively.


That's funny. I've seldom experienced any drive with more issues and 
problems than the TK50.
While I don't particularly like the TU80 (slow, and don't store much), I 
never had much problem with them.

The TU81 is much better, though.

The TK50 on the other hand can be very annoying. First of all, you 
regularly need to open them up and clean them. Second, the operation is, 
depending on firmware version, rather broken, and can refuse to let a 
tape out, meaning you have to open the drive up and manually get the 
tape out, and then fiddly with it a lot to wind the tape in. Thirdly, 
the bloody pickup sometimes jumps the arm holding in, meaning once more 
you need to open the drive up to hook the pickup back on the arm.


When I worked at DEC, we had a TK50 hooked up to a VAX-11/750, and that 
drive was always half dismantled, so we easily could get into it and fix 
it when one of those things happened.


Johnny

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2017-03-17 18:23, Paul Koning wrote:



On Mar 17, 2017, at 1:17 PM, Wilm Boerhout  wrote:

Gary Lee Phillips schreef op 17-3-2017 om 16:54:

Ethan Dicks > wrote:


That's earlier than is possible... the model was introduced in Jan,
1986.  Don't know date of first ship.


Well I did say "around 1985 or so." After 30+ years, I'd say that was a pretty 
close guess.

The tape drive was not TK50. It was standard reel to reel media, horizontal like an 
studio audio tape deck, with a cover that had to be lifted in order to use it. The disk 
drive was housed in the same cabinet in a drawer below the tape unit. The tape drive was 
"finicky" and seemed to work only with tapes ordered through DEC. The standard 
tapes our much larger IBM shop used never read back correctly when written on it.

Could it have been a TS11, nicknamed "Tape Stretcher-11" by those (me included) 
who tried to use it with ever longer, reels of tape and thus ever thinner tape?


Probably not, because the TS11 was a vertical unit. The top mounted horizontal 
one is the TU80 and friends.


Agreed. The description only math the TU80 and TU81.
While those two drives look almost identical, the electronics inside 
what pretty different.

(And the TA models were the same drives, but with a different interface.)


There was also a drive that had the tape loaded from the front, horizontally 
(RK05 fashion), I forgot what that was called.  It wasn't all that reliable 
since it had to do autoload, no manual threading possible.


TSV05. I don't have super much experience with it, but I was constantly 
surprised that it was more reliable than I would have expected. (Which 
isn't saying much...)


Johnny

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Robert Armstrong]

  I fired up the 8350 today and (amazingly!) it still works.  Sadly some of my 
disk drives are not so well off, but I was still able to boot it.  I've imaged 
the console RX50, which is an RT11 file system, and the two diagnostic floppies 
("DIAG SUPER" and "UTIL").  Those last two are in Files-11 format.  FWIW, the 
DIAG UTIL floppy contains an image of the EEPROM as copied by the DEC 
diagnostic program.

  I've converted all three diskettes to simh RX50 image files, which I presume 
is the most useful format.  Where would be a good place to archive them for the 
82xx/83xx simulator project?

  BTW, if anybody has any RA7x drives that they'd be willing to part with, 
please let me know.  I'll be eternally in your debt!  Two of the three drives I 
have on that machine appear to have died since I last used it.  Sadly, keeping 
the electronics running is not nearly as hard as keeping the mechanical parts 
going...

Bob

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Ethan Dicks]

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 4:16 PM, Rich Alderson
 wrote:
>> From: Ethan Dicks 
>> 2400' tapes (1.5mil thickness) were standard but sometime later, thinner (1.0
>> mil?) 3600' tapes came out.

> At LOTS (the Stanford academic computing facility where I worked from 
> 1984-91),
> we did nightly incrementals and weekly full backups...
>
> On the -20s, weekly backups took up 3 2400' reels (only a small portion of the
> 3rd reel being used).  When Memorex came out with their 3600' tapes, I 
> switched
> us over to using them so that weekly backups (rotated on a monthly basis) took
> up less space; nightly incrementals used 2400' because it was almost unheard 
> of
> fot need more than 1, and they were a sunk cost.

Nice save there.  I managed our wall of tape.  I would definitely
loved to have removed 20%-30%...

> The 3600' tapes worked very nicely on TU78/TU79 drives and on the STC drives 
> on
> the SC-30M, and I don't recall any complaints about them on the TU81s attached
> to the VAXen.  As operations manager, I would have heard.

We had a TU78 as our big, main tape drive.  It was really fiddly about
autoload and we had DEC FS out a *lot* when it was under contract.
After we couldn't afford to keep them and all the maintenance fell on
me, I did what I could with it, and we did use it a lot, but there
were some tapes that just would not play nice.  We cleaned the glass
and did all the things.  Some tapes always worked.  Some worked most
of the time.  A few just would not autoload.  Once we could get a tape
loaded and on BOT, the drive was fantastic.   I never had enough data
about brands, etc., to figure out the loading problem.

Our TU80 was fine with whatever we put into it.  I never had a single
problem with the one from the office except after a year or so outside
the data center (at my house), the vacuum pump became unhappy, due to,
I think, high humidity in my non-air-conditioned house.

The TS03 was a beast that shredded tapes if you did not do exactly the
right things.  I didn't use it much but a couple of our folks spent a
lot of time swearing at it.

>>  I have read tape drive instructions that say not
>> to use those tapes in this machine.  I wouldn't be surprised if most DEC tape
>> drives didn't like thinner tape.

I _think_ the warning I recently read about 1mil tapes was in the
manuals for a front-loader HP 7879 drive that I was working on last
year (it passes most of its tests but is still a little cranky).

Your experience with thin tapes is vastly greater than mine.  Good to
confirm DEC tape drives are solid.

-ethan

P.S. - that TU78 was one of the 4-5 items I could not save when the
company folded.
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Rich Alderson]

> From: Ethan Dicks 
> Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2017 15:21:54 -0400

> On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Gary Lee Phillips  
> wrote:

>> Looking at what images I can find on the web, TU-80 seems correct. The one
>> we had was just generally flaky, I guess. It was 1600 bpi, 2400 foot tapes,
>> yes.

> 2400' tapes (1.5mil thickness) were standard but sometime later, thinner (1.0
> mil?) 3600' tapes came out.  I have read tape drive instructions that say not
> to use those tapes in this machine.  I wouldn't be surprised if most DEC tape
> drives didn't like thinner tape.

At LOTS (the Stanford academic computing facility where I worked from 1984-91),
we did nightly incrementals and weekly full backups on the DEC-20s, SC-30M (a
DEC-20 clone), and 2 VAXen, the staff-support 3600 and the student available
8800 (both running Ultrix).

On the -20s, weekly backups took up 3 2400' reels (only a small portion of the
3rd reel being used).  When Memorex came out with their 3600' tapes, I switched
us over to using them so that weekly backups (rotated on a monthly basis) took
up less space; nightly incrementals used 2400' because it was almost unheard of
fot need more than 1, and they were a sunk cost.

The 3600' tapes worked very nicely on TU78/TU79 drives and on the STC drives on
the SC-30M, and I don't recall any complaints about them on the TU81s attached
to the VAXen.  As operations manager, I would have heard.

Rich
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Ethan Dicks]

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 2:35 PM, Gary Lee Phillips  wrote:
> Looking at what images I can find on the web, TU-80 seems correct. The one
> we had was just generally flaky, I guess. It was 1600 bpi, 2400 foot tapes,
> yes.

2400' tapes (1.5mil thickness) were standard but sometime later,
thinner (1.0 mil?) 3600' tapes came out.  I have read tape drive
instructions that say not to use those tapes in this machine.  I
wouldn't be surprised if most DEC tape drives didn't like thinner
tape.

> The MicroVAX we added later came with a TK-50 that never had any problems.

That was not a universal experience.  We had a couple of TK-50 drives
and we found them semi-reliable.  They mostly worked, but we had
occasional spectacular problems.  I had to dismantle the drive more
than once to manually rewind a tape back into the tape case.  We also
lost a few of the pickup barbs.  I have a fresh NOS one - I need to
CAD it up and experiment with various plastic films to see about
lasering some replacements.  Once the tip bends, it needs to be
replaced or it will fail at some random but inconvenient time.

-ethan
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Gary Lee Phillips]

Looking at what images I can find on the web, TU-80 seems correct. The one
we had was just generally flaky, I guess. It was 1600 bpi, 2400 foot tapes,
yes.

The MicroVAX we added later came with a TK-50 that never had any problems.
That came in when a second unrelated project was added that required a VAX
because code for it was written by a partner company that used DEC
equipment exclusively.

--Gary
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Ethan Dicks]

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 1:23 PM, Paul Koning  wrote:
>>> The tape drive was not TK50. It was standard reel to reel media, horizontal 
>>> like an studio audio tape deck, with a cover that had to be lifted in order 
>>> to use it. The disk drive was housed in the same cabinet in a drawer below 
>>> the tape unit.

That gives me a better picture - I was thinking the O.P. said the tape
drive was in the same cabinet as the CPU.

Yeah... TU80, TU81, etc... Was not uncommon to have a full-sized disk
drive (RA81, RA82...) below one of those.

Would only be TU80 if the box had a DWBUA Unibus adapter.

> The tape drive was "finicky" and seemed to work only with tapes ordered 
> through DEC.

I don't remember any media problems with any of the tape drives I
worked with, but I do know there were some tapes that were thinner to
get more feet on a reel.  I'm pretty sure we didn't use those.  We
bought our tapes by the pallet from a 3rd party, not DEC, largely
because we sent our stuff to customers out on 9-track.  They went in
and out the door very rapidly.

>  The top mounted horizontal one is the TU80 and friends.

Yep.

> There was also a drive that had the tape loaded from the front, horizontally 
> (RK05 fashion), I forgot what that was called.  It wasn't all that reliable 
> since it had to do autoload, no manual threading possible.

TS05/TSV05 (Unibus vs Qbus).  I also have a later drive of that style,
a TSZ05, with a SCSI interface.  I use it to read most of my old
tapes.  Cipher brand transport mechanism, typically.

-ethan
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[khandy21yo]

TSV05 or the unibus versions.


Sent from my Galaxy Tab® A
 Original message From: Paul Koning <paulkon...@comcast.net> 
Date: 3/17/17  11:23 AM  (GMT-07:00) To: Wilm Boerhout <wboerh...@gmail.com> 
Cc: simh@trailing-edge.com Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200 

> On Mar 17, 2017, at 1:17 PM, Wilm Boerhout <wboerh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Gary Lee Phillips schreef op 17-3-2017 om 16:54:
>> Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com <mailto:ethan.di...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> >That's earlier than is possible... the model was introduced in Jan,
>> >1986.  Don't know date of first ship.
>> 
>> Well I did say "around 1985 or so." After 30+ years, I'd say that was a 
>> pretty close guess.
>> 
>> The tape drive was not TK50. It was standard reel to reel media, horizontal 
>> like an studio audio tape deck, with a cover that had to be lifted in order 
>> to use it. The disk drive was housed in the same cabinet in a drawer below 
>> the tape unit. The tape drive was "finicky" and seemed to work only with 
>> tapes ordered through DEC. The standard tapes our much larger IBM shop used 
>> never read back correctly when written on it.
> Could it have been a TS11, nicknamed "Tape Stretcher-11" by those (me 
> included) who tried to use it with ever longer, reels of tape and thus ever 
> thinner tape?

Probably not, because the TS11 was a vertical unit.  The top mounted horizontal 
one is the TU80 and friends.  There was also a drive that had the tape loaded 
from the front, horizontally (RK05 fashion), I forgot what that was called.  It 
wasn't all that reliable since it had to do autoload, no manual threading 
possible.

paul


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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Timothe Litt]

On 17-Mar-17 13:23, Paul Koning wrote:
>> On Mar 17, 2017, at 1:17 PM, Wilm Boerhout  wrote:
>>
>> Gary Lee Phillips schreef op 17-3-2017 om 16:54:
>>> Ethan Dicks > wrote:
>>>
 That's earlier than is possible... the model was introduced in Jan,
 1986.  Don't know date of first ship.
>>> Well I did say "around 1985 or so." After 30+ years, I'd say that was a 
>>> pretty close guess.
>>>
>>> The tape drive was not TK50. It was standard reel to reel media, horizontal 
>>> like an studio audio tape deck, with a cover that had to be lifted in order 
>>> to use it. The disk drive was housed in the same cabinet in a drawer below 
>>> the tape unit. The tape drive was "finicky" and seemed to work only with 
>>> tapes ordered through DEC. The standard tapes our much larger IBM shop used 
>>> never read back correctly when written on it.
>> Could it have been a TS11, nicknamed "Tape Stretcher-11" by those (me 
>> included) who tried to use it with ever longer, reels of tape and thus ever 
>> thinner tape?
> Probably not, because the TS11 was a vertical unit.  The top mounted 
> horizontal one is the TU80 and friends.  There was also a drive that had the 
> tape loaded from the front, horizontally (RK05 fashion), I forgot what that 
> was called.  It wasn't all that reliable since it had to do autoload, no 
> manual threading possible.
TS[Z]05
>   paul
>
>
>



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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 17, 2017, at 12:18 PM, Gary Lee Phillips  wrote:
> ...
> In any case, the issue I had was that the particular drive on the 8200 would 
> not read back tapes written even by itself. We used it only for backups from 
> the hard drive. DEC support was called in several times to adjust, calibrate, 
> test, etc. It worked best only with DEC-branded media and if the heads were 
> cleaned before every single use, and finally they just shrugged and said "Use 
> only our media." Of course, theirs cost about twice what we paid for the 
> large bulk quantities of 9 track tape used in the IBM center on the floor 
> below. It wasn't my problem at that point, and my boss just ordered some 
> tapes from DEC. 

Wow.  That's quite outrageous.  My boss would have said "replace the entire 
drive and controller if necessary"; the answer you got was entirely 
unacceptable and the people who said it had no business working for DEC.

paul


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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 17, 2017, at 1:17 PM, Wilm Boerhout  wrote:
> 
> Gary Lee Phillips schreef op 17-3-2017 om 16:54:
>> Ethan Dicks > wrote:
>> 
>> >That's earlier than is possible... the model was introduced in Jan,
>> >1986.  Don't know date of first ship.
>> 
>> Well I did say "around 1985 or so." After 30+ years, I'd say that was a 
>> pretty close guess.
>> 
>> The tape drive was not TK50. It was standard reel to reel media, horizontal 
>> like an studio audio tape deck, with a cover that had to be lifted in order 
>> to use it. The disk drive was housed in the same cabinet in a drawer below 
>> the tape unit. The tape drive was "finicky" and seemed to work only with 
>> tapes ordered through DEC. The standard tapes our much larger IBM shop used 
>> never read back correctly when written on it.
> Could it have been a TS11, nicknamed "Tape Stretcher-11" by those (me 
> included) who tried to use it with ever longer, reels of tape and thus ever 
> thinner tape?

Probably not, because the TS11 was a vertical unit.  The top mounted horizontal 
one is the TU80 and friends.  There was also a drive that had the tape loaded 
from the front, horizontally (RK05 fashion), I forgot what that was called.  It 
wasn't all that reliable since it had to do autoload, no manual threading 
possible.

paul


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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Wilm Boerhout]

Paul Koning schreef op 17-3-2017 om 17:05:
[snip]

More in general, if drive B wont' read tapes written by drive A, the fault could be at 
either end (or both).  It could even be in the standard -- all too many standards, for 
example a whole lot of modern network protocol standards, permit implementations that 
conform but don't interoperate.  In some cases, the authors get annoyed when you point 
this out and call it a standards bug.  (By contrast, the DECnet standards were always 
written to the rule that "conformance implies interoperability".)

"We call it compatible for a reason. If it were the same, we would say so"

/W
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Wilm Boerhout]

Gary Lee Phillips schreef op 17-3-2017 om 16:54:

Ethan Dicks > wrote:

>That's earlier than is possible... the model was introduced in Jan,
>1986.  Don't know date of first ship.

Well I did say "around 1985 or so." After 30+ years, I'd say that was 
a pretty close guess.


The tape drive was not TK50. It was standard reel to reel media, 
horizontal like an studio audio tape deck, with a cover that had to be 
lifted in order to use it. The disk drive was housed in the same 
cabinet in a drawer below the tape unit. The tape drive was "finicky" 
and seemed to work only with tapes ordered through DEC. The standard 
tapes our much larger IBM shop used never read back correctly when 
written on it.
Could it have been a TS11, nicknamed "Tape Stretcher-11" by those (me 
included) who tried to use it with ever longer, reels of tape and thus 
ever thinner tape?


/*Wilm*
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Gary Lee Phillips]

On Fri, Mar 17, 2017 at 11:05 AM, Paul Koning 
wrote:

>
> FWIW, I just saw a comment that some IBM systems (early 360, perhaps) had
> a habit of inserting short gaps into the middle of tape records because of
> memory latency issues.  Apparently IBM's drives could read such stuff but
> other people's drives would not, fair enough since such tapes are not
> standards-compliant.
>
>
Our IBM stuff was (IIRC) 3084 by that time, or if not, a dual 370 set up. I
don't remember ever trying to do data interchange on tape with the IBM
systems using that particular drive. When that need came up later on we
deliberately avoided DEC hardware for the second tape drive and got a stand
alone drive unit that was vertically mounted with vacuum columns. I don't
remember the maker's name, but it worked as expected, never required a
service call, and read or wrote any brand of media we used.

In any case, the issue I had was that the particular drive on the 8200
would not read back tapes written even by itself. We used it only for
backups from the hard drive. DEC support was called in several times to
adjust, calibrate, test, etc. It worked best only with DEC-branded media
and if the heads were cleaned before every single use, and finally they
just shrugged and said "Use only our media." Of course, theirs cost about
twice what we paid for the large bulk quantities of 9 track tape used in
the IBM center on the floor below. It wasn't my problem at that point, and
my boss just ordered some tapes from DEC.

--Gary
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 17, 2017, at 11:54 AM, Gary Lee Phillips  wrote:
> 
> ...
> The tape drive was not TK50. It was standard reel to reel media, horizontal 
> like an studio audio tape deck, with a cover that had to be lifted in order 
> to use it. The disk drive was housed in the same cabinet in a drawer below 
> the tape unit. The tape drive was "finicky" and seemed to work only with 
> tapes ordered through DEC. The standard tapes our much larger IBM shop used 
> never read back correctly when written on it.

That sounds like a TU80, TU81, TA80, or TA81, all basically the same transport 
with variations in density and controller interconnect.  Interesting about the 
"finicky" thing, I don't have any personal experience with feeding it tapes 
from other companies.

FWIW, I just saw a comment that some IBM systems (early 360, perhaps) had a 
habit of inserting short gaps into the middle of tape records because of memory 
latency issues.  Apparently IBM's drives could read such stuff but other 
people's drives would not, fair enough since such tapes are not 
standards-compliant.

More in general, if drive B wont' read tapes written by drive A, the fault 
could be at either end (or both).  It could even be in the standard -- all too 
many standards, for example a whole lot of modern network protocol standards, 
permit implementations that conform but don't interoperate.  In some cases, the 
authors get annoyed when you point this out and call it a standards bug.  (By 
contrast, the DECnet standards were always written to the rule that 
"conformance implies interoperability".)

paul

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Gary Lee Phillips]

Ethan Dicks  wrote:

>That's earlier than is possible... the model was introduced in Jan,
>1986.  Don't know date of first ship.

Well I did say "around 1985 or so." After 30+ years, I'd say that was a
pretty close guess.

The tape drive was not TK50. It was standard reel to reel media, horizontal
like an studio audio tape deck, with a cover that had to be lifted in order
to use it. The disk drive was housed in the same cabinet in a drawer below
the tape unit. The tape drive was "finicky" and seemed to work only with
tapes ordered through DEC. The standard tapes our much larger IBM shop used
never read back correctly when written on it.

I was not party to the administrative decision to purchase the VAX, but it
was related to some joint ventures that required a kind of real time
connectivity that IBM equipment could not provide. I enjoyed the
opportunity of learning and working with the hardware and providing system
support but wasn't involved in the application end much. After a couple of
years, the project was terminated without any end result, and I moved to
other employment just before that happened but kept the VMS bug in my blood.

--Gary
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Robert Armstrong]

>Timothe Litt (l...@ieee.org) wrote:

>Under VMS, PFN map a section to the EEPROM, copy it to normal memory & write 
>it to disk.

  Actually it looks like the EEPROM utility (VAX 8200 Owner’s Manual, chapter 
3) can save the entire EEPROM image to a file.  I’ll see what I can do.

Bob

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Robert Armstrong]

>Under VMS, PFN map a section to the EEPROM, copy it to normal memory & write 
>it to disk.

  Um, fair enough.  I don’t suppose someone has a program already written to do 
this?  

  I could have easily done that about ten or fifteen years ago, and in theory I 
still can, but it’ll probably take an afternoon with the VMS manuals to 
remember how J

Bob

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Timothe Litt]

Under VMS, PFN map a section to the EEPROM, copy it to normal memory &
write it to disk.

Be careful with which instructions you use; IO space (where it lives)
may have alignment/size restrictions.  MOVL should be safe.


On 16-Mar-17 23:38, Robert Armstrong wrote:
>> Does anyone have a copy of EEPROM image? 
>   Do you know a way to extract a copy of the EEPROM image from the machine?   
> If not, is the chip socketed?  Do you know the part number off hand?  If it's 
> socketed AND it's a standard part I can probably read it in my EPROM 
> programmer.
>
> Bob
>
>
>
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Robert Armstrong]

>Does anyone have a copy of EEPROM image? 

  Do you know a way to extract a copy of the EEPROM image from the machine?   
If not, is the chip socketed?  Do you know the part number off hand?  If it's 
socketed AND it's a standard part I can probably read it in my EPROM programmer.

Bob



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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Tim Stark]

Yeah. Yes, it need console media for SRM firmware.  There is 16k EEPROM in VAX 
8200 contains config setting and bootstrap codes for RX50 and KDA50 drives. 
When power up started, a RX50 bootstrap will be copied into boot RAM at 
starting 2009 from 20098000 then execute it.

KA820 technical manual have a listing of boot ROM for RX50 and KDA50.   Does 
anyone have a copy of EEPROM image? Can someone make a dump of console media 
disks?

Yes, KA820 supports multi-processor system.

Tim

-Original Message-
From: Simh [mailto:simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Robert Armstrong
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 4:07 PM
To: 'Ethan Dicks' <ethan.di...@gmail.com>; simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

> Ethan Dicks (ethan.di...@gmail.com) wrote:
>I happen to have one (from when I worked for Jim Ebright).  

  I have a running 8350 as well, should you need a dump of the console media or 
something.

  It is, I believe, the physically smallest BI bus VAX, and therefore 
interesting for those reason.  It's the only such machine that I could fit in 
my garage :-)

  It's also the only multi-processor VAX system that I have and equally 
interesting for that reason too.  FWIW, I've always wondered if the limitation 
to two CPUs was purely for testing and support reasons - it doesn't seem that 
there's any reason why you could not plug in three or even more CPU cards.

Bob Armstrong

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Robert Armstrong]

> I might have a DCL script to build a console floppy from files on the system 
> volume

  FWIW, on the 7xx machines there was a DCL script provided by DEC called 
CONSCOPY.  It used EXCHANGE to copy the console media to a disk container and 
vice versa.  Can't remember if the 8200/8300 machines had the same thing, but I 
wouldn't be surprised.  I'm pretty sure the 8200/8300 console floppies were in 
RT11 format, so EXCHANGE would do the job.

Bob


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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 4:07 PM, Robert Armstrong  wrote:
>> Ethan Dicks (ethan.di...@gmail.com) wrote:
>>I happen to have one (from when I worked for Jim Ebright).
>
>   I have a running 8350 as well, should you need a dump of the console media 
> or something.

So far, so good... and I might have a DCL script to build a console
floppy from files on the system volume (I was in the habit of ensuring
I could do that from my days with the 11/730 and 11/725).

>   It is, I believe, the physically smallest BI bus VAX, and therefore 
> interesting for those reason.

Yep.  One box for the CPU, memory and peripherals, and all inside a
42"-tall rack.  Just add disk.  Small footprint.

> It's the only such machine that I could fit in my garage :-)

With a VAXBI bus?  Yeah... there were equal (11/730) or smaller
(11/725) Unibus systems, but it was the smallest VAXBI machine outside
of the rare VAXstation 8000.

>   It's also the only multi-processor VAX system that I have and equally 
> interesting for that reason too.

Sure.

> FWIW, I've always wondered if the limitation to two CPUs was purely for 
> testing and support reasons - it doesn't seem that there's any reason why you 
> could not plug in three or even more CPU cards.

What I remember from the 80s is that you _can_ plug in more than 2
cards (you'd need an ID plug on the backplane for additional CPUs,
IIRC) but you don't get any more performance from it.  Two CPUs rather
maxes out the VAXBI bus since all memory and I/O traffic are on the
one bus.  Also, from back when typical memory cards were 2MB and 4MB,
removing memory to add CPUs was also the path to a performance loss.
With the MS820-CA 16MB card (of which I have zero), that alleviates
this somewhat - 32MB of RAM in an 8200 is not a terrible thing and
then only takes up 2 slots.

I should say my 8200 has a DWBUA Unibus adapter, but I have 2 VAXBI
card cages in the BA-32 and the Unibus DD11-DK is in a BA-11 off to
the side.  One configuration had the DD11-DK _in_ the BA-32 next to a
single VAXBI backplane and there, you had little room for extra
anything.

-ethan
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Sergey Oboguev]

> Robert Armstrong  wrote:
> I have a running 8350 [...] I've always wondered if the limitation to two 
> CPUs was purely for testing and support reasons - 
> it doesn't seem that there's any reason why you could not plug in three or 
> even more CPU cards.
By the way of the anecdotes, Bernd Ulmann who owns a huge (likely the largest 
in the world by now) collection of VAX/Alpha equipment (a shed filled with  
various models of VAXes, including 7000, 6000 vector, 8000 series, MicroVAXes, 
VAXstations, HSCs, star couplers, RA disks, you name it), including the 
machines that were never released or were released in a singular quantities 
(like 32-processor Alpha), owns VAX 8330 (?) -- or anyway a 3-CPU 8000 series 
machine.

The machine was being designed by DEC Germany, and was intended to be a 
3-processor edition.
However it was generating spurious bus resets and DEC engineering was never 
able to figure why.
Thus the machine was never releases commercially and the only engineering 
sample had been sitting for a good while in DEC/Compaq engineering storage 
before being dumped to Bernd's collection.

* * *

I also cannot help but remember the other story Bernd had, about that 
32-processor Alpha. It was special-ordered by some German company, but while 
Compaq Germany was being putting it together, the company that ordered the 
machine went out of business. So Compaq held the machine for a while but 
several years later dumped it to Bernd as well. When I was visiting Bernd some 
years ago, he still never turned the machine on (unlike most of the others in 
his collection), since the power draw would put the lights out in the whole 
village where the shed resides... he was still figuring out the power feed.

* * *

And then, my favorite of Bernd's tales, is about the machine that had the most 
exotic fate: it was a MicroVAX III that was being shipped from the Western 
Germany to the USSR in the late 1980's, and German customs intercepted the 
shipping (infrequently, but occasionally they would succeeded in that). While 
German authorities were trying to figure out what to do with the intercepted 
shipping, the customs put it in the warehouse, where it sat for the next 20 
years. In the late 2000's German customs noticed that this box had been sitting 
there for 20 years, and it was apparently the time to do something about it 
after all. The box ended up at Bernd's barn. Bernd opened it, powered up this 
MicroVAX and installed VMS on it -- it worked flawlessly.

Few months after learning this story from Bernd (he told it to me while 
pointing at that MicroVAX) I was at my old VAXcluster room about 2 hours from 
Moscow (machines were long gone by then), taking out the old tapes -- in the 
hopes of finding some retro-interesting software/files there. My friend and I 
took select tapes from the storage shelves down to the building entrance, but 
we needed to transport them to another building on site located a mile away, 
where the tapes could be kept temporarily before smuggling them out beyond the 
secure perimeter. Tapes were bulky and heavy, and carrying them this distance 
would have been quite an exercise, so my friend called his colleague, who had a 
car pass to the site. His colleague came in the car, and while we were loading 
the tapes into the trunk, he looked at those tapes recorded 20 to 25 years ago 
and said:

– I kind of doubt you'll be able to read them.

In response I told him a story about Bernd's MicroVAX that sat for 20 years in 
the box and then worked just fine.

To which my friend's colleague responded with an instinctive exclamation, 
without an instant of thinking:

– Of course! What could have ever happened to it?! It's a VAX!___
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Anders Magnusson]

I can note here that we ran a 4-CPU 8350 (8354? :-)  with Ultrix. Worked 
very well!


This was also the machine which I used when writing the NetBSD vax SMP 
support.


-- Ragge

Den 2017-03-16 kl. 21:17, skrev Dan Gahlinger:

the vax smp emulator seems to support that theory.




Dan


 Original message 
From: Robert Armstrong <b...@jfcl.com>
Date: 2017-03-16 4:07 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: 'Ethan Dicks' <ethan.di...@gmail.com>, simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

> Ethan Dicks (ethan.di...@gmail.com) wrote:
>I happen to have one (from when I worked for Jim Ebright).

  I have a running 8350 as well, should you need a dump of the console 
media or something.


  It is, I believe, the physically smallest BI bus VAX, and therefore 
interesting for those reason.  It's the only such machine that I could 
fit in my garage :-)


  It's also the only multi-processor VAX system that I have and 
equally interesting for that reason too.  FWIW, I've always wondered 
if the limitation to two CPUs was purely for testing and support 
reasons - it doesn't seem that there's any reason why you could not 
plug in three or even more CPU cards.


Bob Armstrong

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 4:12 PM, Gary Lee Phillips  wrote:
> In fact there's very little evidence on the web that the 8200 ever existed.
> The first VAX I ever worked with (around 1985 or so) was an 8200...

That's earlier than is possible... the model was introduced in Jan,
1986.  Don't know date of first ship.

> Anyway, yes, the console was an oddity. So was the terrible vacuum-less tape
> drive built into the cabinet.

I don't know what tape drive you are thinking of (TK50?  TM03?
TA81+?), but the 8200 was in a BA-32 box in the top of a 42"-tall
cabinet and inside the lower part of the cabinet were a couple of
cross-bar arms and cable restraints, and on the back, it was approx
50% I/O bulkheads for the ends of all those cables.

http://hampage.hu/vax/kepek/Vax8200.jpg

-ethan
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Dan Gahlinger]

the vax smp emulator seems to support that theory.




Dan


 Original message 
From: Robert Armstrong <b...@jfcl.com>
Date: 2017-03-16 4:07 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: 'Ethan Dicks' <ethan.di...@gmail.com>, simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

> Ethan Dicks (ethan.di...@gmail.com) wrote:
>I happen to have one (from when I worked for Jim Ebright).

  I have a running 8350 as well, should you need a dump of the console media or 
something.

  It is, I believe, the physically smallest BI bus VAX, and therefore 
interesting for those reason.  It's the only such machine that I could fit in 
my garage :-)

  It's also the only multi-processor VAX system that I have and equally 
interesting for that reason too.  FWIW, I've always wondered if the limitation 
to two CPUs was purely for testing and support reasons - it doesn't seem that 
there's any reason why you could not plug in three or even more CPU cards.

Bob Armstrong

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Gary Lee Phillips]

In fact there's very little evidence on the web that the 8200 ever existed.
The first VAX I ever worked with (around 1985 or so) was an 8200 and there
was a point where I was convinced I had remembered the model ID incorrectly
because I could find nothing about it online. Then I found a promotional
button in my desk drawer, rectangular with rounded corners, that had a
photo of the floor-standing unit and the text "VAX 8200" on it. So I knew
it had existed. Must not have been a lot of them sold, though.

Anyway, yes, the console was an oddity. So was the terrible vacuum-less
tape drive built into the cabinet. We eventually purchased a real drive
with vacuum columns because you could never count on reading a backup tape
again after it was written. The system ran VMS 4.4 and performed reliably
otherwise. We eventually added a Microvax II and a PDP-11 to the complex.
The PDP ran RSX and operated as a routing link between the IBM mainframes
with JES2/MVS/TSO and the DECNet nodes. I even published an article about
using a custom symbiont to make the mainframe print queues look like a
regular VMS printer queue on the VAXen.

That was a galaxy long ago and far away. It would be fun to see a working
8200 in SimH, but sounds like a major job reconstructing it.

--Gary
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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Robert Armstrong]

> Ethan Dicks (ethan.di...@gmail.com) wrote:
>I happen to have one (from when I worked for Jim Ebright).  

  I have a running 8350 as well, should you need a dump of the console media or 
something.

  It is, I believe, the physically smallest BI bus VAX, and therefore 
interesting for those reason.  It's the only such machine that I could fit in 
my garage :-)

  It's also the only multi-processor VAX system that I have and equally 
interesting for that reason too.  FWIW, I've always wondered if the limitation 
to two CPUs was purely for testing and support reasons - it doesn't seem that 
there's any reason why you could not plug in three or even more CPU cards.

Bob Armstrong

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Re: [Simh] VAX 8200

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 3:37 PM, Bob Supnik  wrote:
> There's an almost total lack of 8200 (aka V-11 or Scorpio) documentation on
> the web.

So true.

I happen to have one (from when I worked for Jim Ebright).  It's the
only mid-sized VAX I have plugged in at the moment.

> I have chip pictures (http://simh.trailing-edge.com/semi/v11.html),

Nice.  I can scan my boards if the packaging/heatsinks are interesting
enough to capture.

> 2. The 8200 has a patchable control store. This was used to avoid updating
> the microcode chips (five of them, all VLSI) for every microcode bug.

I remember having to update one of my two T1001 boards so I could run
them together as a VAX8300 (our box was purchased with a single CPU,
then I picked up a second CPU board for ~$100 with some random
microcode rev, and got it all working as our first SMP machine).  This
reminds me I should probably archive my console RX50 media.

Nice little machine.  For us, it was a nice bump up from our 11/750,
but by the time it came along, it was mostly a development machine, so
it was pretty much a single-user workstation for me.  Our 11/750 was
still the general office machine with our productivity apps, e-mail,
etc.  The 8200 was capable of so much more but its big accomplishment
for us was allowing us to make our VAXBI COMBOARD, and for _only_
$13,000!

-ethan
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[Simh] VAX 8200

[Bob Supnik]

There's an almost total lack of 8200 (aka V-11 or Scorpio) documentation 
on the web. I have chip pictures 
(http://simh.trailing-edge.com/semi/v11.html), and I think the chip 
specs (which won't help much) are in my archive at the Computer History 
Museum. Here are some things to be aware of:


1. The 8200, unlike other mid-range VAXes, does not have a console 
microprocessor. There is a basic console implemented in the microcode. 
It can boot a device via "boot block" booting (for example, the console 
floppy). Thus, it's more like the LSI-11/F-11/J-11 chips, which had a 
basic console in the microcode. The MicroVAX family dispensed with 
console processors and console microcode in favor of boot ROMs.


2. The 8200 has a patchable control store. This was used to avoid 
updating the microcode chips (five of them, all VLSI) for every 
microcode bug. When the system was finally stable and shaken out, there 
was enough patch space left to replace the CALL/RET mask processing, 
which initially used the compact-but-slow MicroVAX II algorithm, with a 
more 8800-like version based on case fanouts. This need not be 
simulated, except insofar as boot processing may try to load it.


3. The 8200 floating point chip, which was not optional, is essentially 
the same as the MicroVAX CPU and has the same POLYx bug.


4. The 8200 series was the only VAX to use the BI as a memory bus. In 
the 6000 series, the XMI/XMI+ was the memory bus, and the BI was used 
strictly for IO.


I've written to a colleague who ran the microcode project for V-11 to 
see if he kept any materials, but I'm not holding my breath.

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