Hello! I am in the process to revive an VAX-11/750 machine but since I have no tape (nor install tapes) drive my idea was to create an image which I could transfer to a SCSI disk and then use a MSCP SCSI controller to boot the machine.
I thought it would be a good idea to use the SimH vax750 simulator to do this work. But I encounter problem. Many of these problems are probably due to the fact I am not very familiar with SimH. Although I think I read though several documents and studied the source code. The booting process of the SimH vax750 simulator seems to differ from the real VAX-11/750. On the real thing when I insert console media and boot it it will read and I get a BOOT58> prompt. This doesn't happen at all on the simulator. Instead it seems that it preloads vmb.exe and then execute it. The images I have been using was found on http://iamvirtual.ca/VAX11/VAX-11-software.html All tests below is run using SimH from github compiled on MACOS. Although I have also tested to compile it on Linux with the same result. This is what happen on the simulator: sim> boot td0 Loading boot code from vmb.exe Please remove the volume "CONSOLE" from the console device. Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES Resuming load operation on volume "CONSOLE", please stand by . . . 1 BRK AT 00001C50 00001C50/CF00FB01 It seems some kind of command line is active since I get this output when I press some random keys: EH? EEE 00000EEE /8AAF9552 -------- Booting a standalone backup works OK if I don't follow the instructions to replace the console media the first time. sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-CT97A-BE.TAP TD: writing buffer to file TD: buffering file in memory sim> boot td0 Loading boot code from vmb.exe Please remove the volume "SYSTEM_1" from the console device. Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES Resuming load operation on volume "SYSTEM_1", please stand by . . . Please remove the volume "SYSTEM_1" from the console device. Insert the next standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: Simulation stopped, PC: 000083D8 (MFPR #20,R0) sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-CT98A-BE.TAP TD: writing buffer to file TD: buffering file in memory sim> cont YES Resuming load operation on volume "SYSTEM_2", please stand by . . . VAX/VMS Version V4.0 15-SEP-1984 22:29 Please remove the volume "SYSTEM_2" from the console device. Insert the standalone application volume and enter "YES" when ready: Simulation stopped, PC: 80008B1F (BRB 80008B1F) sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-CT99A-BE.TAP TD: writing buffer to file TD: buffering file in memory sim> cont YES Resuming load operation on volume "BACKUP", please stand by . . . %BACKUP-I-IDENT, Stand-alone BACKUP V4.0; the date is 17-JUN-1984 22:40:44.48 $ --------- Then trying to run various diagnostics images that are supposed to be standalone and do read on the real thing but gives the following result: sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-S198Q-DE.TAP TD: writing buffer to file TD: buffering file in memory sim> boot td0 Loading boot code from vmb.exe Please remove the volume "VMS Exchange" from the console device. Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES Resuming load operation on volume "VMS Exchange", please stand by . . . ECKAL -- VAX 11/750 Cache/TB Diagnostic HALT instruction, PC: 00002608 (MTPR #F,#26) sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-S199T-DE.TAP TD: writing buffer to file TD: buffering file in memory sim> boot td0 Loading boot code from vmb.exe Please remove the volume "VMS Exchange" from the console device. Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES Resuming load operation on volume "VMS Exchange", please stand by . . . %BOOT-F-Unable to locate BOOT file HALT instruction, PC: 000004C7 (BLBS 549,4C6) sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-S200I-DE.TAP TD: writing buffer to file TD: buffering file in memory sim> boot td0 Loading boot code from vmb.exe Please remove the volume "" from the console device. Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES Resuming load operation on volume "", please stand by . . . %BOOT-F-Unable to locate BOOT file HALT instruction, PC: 000004C7 (BLBS 549,4C6) sim> As you can see the Cache/TB diagnostic do read in and seem to execute but fails. The others doesn't even seems to boot correctly. When tested on the real hardware all these start (although the Cache/TB fail, alas not at the same location) Maybe the best idea is to dump out the real BOOT PROMs from the actual machine an load those into memory and start those? I haven't been able to test this since the machine 100 km away. I did successfully boot a Ultrix-4.0 tap file from bitsavers in the vax andra microvax2 simulator. But how can I do that on the vax750 simulator? Doing "boot tq0" give "Command not allowed". Although help file indicate it is a valid command!? Any help appreciated! /Mattis
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