Re: Greetings
> On 29 Apr 2019, at 21:47, allison via cctech wrote: >> > You are limited to what the VAX-11/780 system had for peripherals and > typically under 8MB ram (it maxed at 16mb). I know later 780s (probably with an upgraded memory controller) supported 64MB of memory. I have used VMS 1.6 and started managing VMS systems around the 2.4 timeframe. I haven’t looked but does the simh 11/780 also provide PDP-11 compatibility mode? You used to run a very large amount of -11 code in VMS 1.x.. Huw Davies | e-mail: huw.dav...@kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne| "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia| air, the sky would be painted green"
Re: Greetings
On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 12:44 PM allison via cctech wrote: > On 04/29/2019 11:37 AM, Jon Elson wrote: > > On 04/29/2019 06:47 AM, allison via cctech wrote: > >> On 04/28/2019 09:28 PM, Grant Taylor via cctech wrote: > >>> On 4/28/19 6:27 PM, Ray Jewhurst wrote: > I already have a Hobbyist License. I am just interested in > experimenting with different OSes and different versions of OSes. > >>> ACK > >>> > >>> I don't know what VAX hardware VMS 1.5 supported, what VAX hardware > >>> that Simh supports, or what the overlap is between the two. > >>> > >> You are limited to what the VAX-11/780 system had for peripherals and > >> typically under 8MB ram (it maxed at 16mb). > > The typical environment during the DEC years '83-93 was a 780 with a > 4-12mb and dozens of users or more. We (by that I mean Software Results) had an 11/750 that started out with 512K of RAM and quickly upgraded to 2MB. I later bumped it up to 8MB (adding the backplane wire and replacing the memory controller) and we ran 40+ users on it. > In 83 that meant 3.2 or later and much of the time was V3.8 or 3.9 till > maybe 86ish then V4 and soon after V5. I first encountered VMS in late 1984. I started off a just a user, so I don't recall the version, but ISTR we upgraded to either V3.4 or V3.6. We stayed there for a while, but the MicroVAX I we got was upgraded from, MicroVMS 1.0 to MicroVMS 4.0 as fast as that came out. Eventually we did the upgrade path to 4.0 and beyond, pausing at 4.6 on that machine in part because we had a SI9900 controller (you had to patch DRDRIVER.EXE to use all the cylinders of a Fuji Eagle) and in part because we had customers who were still on V4.X. I put V5.something on an 11/730 and we used that box to link our product for newer versions of VMS (after 1988). When we shut everything down in 1993, we were still running VMS 4.6 on that 11/750 and never needed to upgrade it past 8MB. It did have about 1GB on 4 spindles and 2 controllers. > The years 83 and 84 I fondly remember V3.6 and later mostly V3.8... I definitely remember V3.6 but I don't think we were on V3.8 for very long before moving to V4.0. > If memory serves V4 was the last that ran in 1meg, V5 pushed that higher > as a 4 meg system was more common then. I don't think I ever tried to run V4 in under 4MB (even our MicroVAX I was maxxed out). Or MicroVAX II had 9MB (and I think we had that one on V5.4 for a while before moving to V5.5-1). I think our VAX 8200 was on V5.4 for product development (COMBOARD for VAXBI) and it had no less than 8MB (the total amount varied by how many slots we had to free up by removing 2MB boards. > However the Qbus uVAX has a RD54[system] and RD52[swap] on > separate MSCP controllers > for performance as thats where they bottlenecked when heavy swapping. That sounds like fun - we never had enough hardware to pull that off. > All my uVAXen have run from V4.4 [MicroVaxII/GPX] or later and my > nominal version is 5.4. Though I have a > RZ56 with V7.2 on it. All are physical hardware in the Qbus BA123 > realm and M3100 series. Cool. I've powered up the MicroVAX II in recent memory, and the VAX 8200 but I haven't fired up the 11/750 since the company folded. > Running anything before V3 is painful as it was a build. Also V1 was > tied the 780 and that did PDP11 emulation > mode for a lot of stuff. Like I said, I started with V3.x so I missed out on the "joy". > VMS changed a lot from 4.2 to 4.6, long file > names are one that comes to mind as well as > phase III and IV DECnet. Yep. Lots of changes, most of them improvements. > That was a long time ago. It sure was. -ethan
Re: Greetings
> On Apr 29, 2019, at 7:47 AM, allison via cctech wrote: > > On 04/28/2019 09:28 PM, Grant Taylor via cctech wrote: >> On 4/28/19 6:27 PM, Ray Jewhurst wrote: >>> I already have a Hobbyist License. I am just interested in >>> experimenting with different OSes and different versions of OSes. >> >> ACK >> >> I don't know what VAX hardware VMS 1.5 supported, what VAX hardware >> that Simh supports, or what the overlap is between the two. >> >> There's a reasonable chance that someone will chime in with experience. >> > You are limited to what the VAX-11/780 system had for peripherals and > typically under 8MB ram (it maxed at 16mb). Does it support MSCP? If not, RP06 would certainly serve for your disks. paul
Re: Greetings
On 4/29/19 12:45 PM, allison via cctech wrote: > On 04/29/2019 11:37 AM, Jon Elson wrote: >> On 04/29/2019 06:47 AM, allison via cctech wrote: >>> On 04/28/2019 09:28 PM, Grant Taylor via cctech wrote: On 4/28/19 6:27 PM, Ray Jewhurst wrote: > I already have a Hobbyist License. I am just interested in > experimenting with different OSes and different versions of OSes. ACK I don't know what VAX hardware VMS 1.5 supported, what VAX hardware that Simh supports, or what the overlap is between the two. There's a reasonable chance that someone will chime in with experience. >>> You are limited to what the VAX-11/780 system had for peripherals and >>> typically under 8MB ram (it maxed at 16mb). >> Well, for command-line computing (well, this IS the classic computing >> list) you can do a lot. >> Our first 11/780 had half a megabyte of memory. Friday afternoon one >> memory board went bad, and I pulled it out. A user group ran a >> gigantic batch job of mechanical analysis over the weekend on 256 K! >> I was amazed, I really thought it would thrash itself to death on that. >> >> I ran a microVAX-II at home on one meg for years. > > The typical environment during the DEC years '83-93 was a 780 with a > 4-12mb and dozens of users or more. Unless someone tried to run Ada, then it became a single user system. :-) bill
Re: Greetings
On 04/29/2019 11:37 AM, Jon Elson wrote: > On 04/29/2019 06:47 AM, allison via cctech wrote: >> On 04/28/2019 09:28 PM, Grant Taylor via cctech wrote: >>> On 4/28/19 6:27 PM, Ray Jewhurst wrote: I already have a Hobbyist License. I am just interested in experimenting with different OSes and different versions of OSes. >>> ACK >>> >>> I don't know what VAX hardware VMS 1.5 supported, what VAX hardware >>> that Simh supports, or what the overlap is between the two. >>> >>> There's a reasonable chance that someone will chime in with experience. >>> >>> >>> >> You are limited to what the VAX-11/780 system had for peripherals and >> typically under 8MB ram (it maxed at 16mb). > Well, for command-line computing (well, this IS the classic computing > list) you can do a lot. > Our first 11/780 had half a megabyte of memory. Friday afternoon one > memory board went bad, and I pulled it out. A user group ran a > gigantic batch job of mechanical analysis over the weekend on 256 K! > I was amazed, I really thought it would thrash itself to death on that. > > I ran a microVAX-II at home on one meg for years. The typical environment during the DEC years '83-93 was a 780 with a 4-12mb and dozens of users or more. In 83 that meant 3.2 or later and much of the time was V3.8 or 3.9 till maybe 86ish then V4 and soon after V5. The years 83 and 84 I fondly remember V3.6 and later mostly 3.8 and often the best available machine was a PDP-11 [PRINCE] and [VIDEO] as the terminals and printers machines were running RSTS and phase II DECnet. Others of memory were MILRAT, REX, and ROYALT and later (1989) my own work box VIDSYS (uVAXII BA123]. If memory serves V4 was the last that ran in 1meg, V5 pushed that higher as a 4 meg system was more common then. However the Qbus uVAX has a RD54[system] and RD52[swap] on separate MSCP controllers for performance as thats where they bottlenecked when heavy swapping. All my uVAXen have run from V4.4 [MicroVaxII/GPX] or later and my nominal version is 5.4. Though I have a RZ56 with V7.2 on it. All are physical hardware in the Qbus BA123 realm and M3100 series. > > But, I never experienced VMS before about version 3.4, I think. I'd > really hate to run any VMS that didn't have loadable device drivers. > Doing the brute force sysgens was so RSX-11 ish. > I think VMS 1.5 still had a bunch of utilities running in PDP-11 > emulation. > > Jon > Running anything before V3 is painful as it was a build. Also V1 was tied the 780 and that did PDP11 emulation mode for a lot of stuff. VMS changed a lot from 4.2 to 4.6, long file names are one that comes to mind as well as phase III and IV DECnet. That was a long time ago. Allsion
Re: Greetings
On 04/29/2019 06:47 AM, allison via cctech wrote: On 04/28/2019 09:28 PM, Grant Taylor via cctech wrote: On 4/28/19 6:27 PM, Ray Jewhurst wrote: I already have a Hobbyist License. I am just interested in experimenting with different OSes and different versions of OSes. ACK I don't know what VAX hardware VMS 1.5 supported, what VAX hardware that Simh supports, or what the overlap is between the two. There's a reasonable chance that someone will chime in with experience. You are limited to what the VAX-11/780 system had for peripherals and typically under 8MB ram (it maxed at 16mb). Well, for command-line computing (well, this IS the classic computing list) you can do a lot. Our first 11/780 had half a megabyte of memory. Friday afternoon one memory board went bad, and I pulled it out. A user group ran a gigantic batch job of mechanical analysis over the weekend on 256 K! I was amazed, I really thought it would thrash itself to death on that. I ran a microVAX-II at home on one meg for years. But, I never experienced VMS before about version 3.4, I think. I'd really hate to run any VMS that didn't have loadable device drivers. Doing the brute force sysgens was so RSX-11 ish. I think VMS 1.5 still had a bunch of utilities running in PDP-11 emulation. Jon
Re: Greetings
On 04/28/2019 09:28 PM, Grant Taylor via cctech wrote: > On 4/28/19 6:27 PM, Ray Jewhurst wrote: >> I already have a Hobbyist License. I am just interested in >> experimenting with different OSes and different versions of OSes. > > ACK > > I don't know what VAX hardware VMS 1.5 supported, what VAX hardware > that Simh supports, or what the overlap is between the two. > > There's a reasonable chance that someone will chime in with experience. > > > You are limited to what the VAX-11/780 system had for peripherals and typically under 8MB ram (it maxed at 16mb).
