Mark,

Yes, my 780 diagnostics are dated in 1983 for VMS 3.x system. I do not know its 
version yet.  We used others than EVKAA.exe to find many bugs in 780's CIS and 
string instructions like EDIT, etc.

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Pizzolato <m...@infocomm.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2018 5:17 PM
To: fsword...@gmail.com
Cc: simh@trailing-edge.com
Subject: RE: [Simh] Looking for EVKAA Listing

On Saturday, September 22, 2018 at 1:37 PM, Tim Stark wrote:
> I have HCORE and 780 diagnostics that we used them to fixing many bugs 
> in SIMH MicroVAX 3900 and VAX-11/780 emulators in early 2000s.

I've got HCORE (aka EHKAA).

As for 780 diagnostics, did you use anything beyond EVKAA.EXE to find and fix 
CPU instruction bugs?  If so, I'll be glad to have more tools that help verify 
the system's behavior.  If not, someone has already sent me EVKAA.exe version 
10.4.

> I have only listings for HCORE but not 780 diagnostics.  I still am 
> looking for 780 diagnostics listing.

I've found that the EVKAA.exe binary runs on all of the Unibus VAX systems 
(under simulation anyway), not just the 780.  Given that it seems to be an 
instruction verifier, and all of the VAXes execute the same instructions this 
isn't surprising.

> We do not have AXE tools yet.

We can only hope someone has it.

- Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simh <simh-boun...@trailing-edge.com> On Behalf Of Mark 
> Pizzolato
> Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2018 3:46 PM
> To: simh@trailing-edge.com
> Subject: [Simh] Looking for EVKAA Listing
> 
> Hello everyone,
> 
> We've got a problem with the VAX simulators which has come up several 
> times in the past and is threatening to completely break them in the future.
> 
> The original implementation of the VAX simulator code was done with
> int32 variables throughout and assumed VAX like consistent behavior on 
> integer overflow operations.  As it turns out, the C language 
> explicitly states that behavior of signed integers when overflow occurs is 
> undefined.
> "undefined" allows the compiler to behave in arbitrary ways when this 
> happens.  Currently, the default compiler on OS X (clang or LLVM) 
> produces unexpected results when any optimization level is specified.
> In the future it may also produce unexpected results for unoptimized 
> code as well since technically any behavior under those circumstances could 
> happen.
> 
> I've got a reworked version of the VAX cpu simulator code which uses
> uint32 throughout and as such does not encounter any potential for 
> undefined results.  The scope of these changes affect many different 
> places in the simulator so some rigorous testing will be required 
> before I'm comfortable merging these changes into the master branch.
> Merely booting VMS successfully is not a sufficient test.  DEC had a 
> tool called AXE which was used to verify that new VAX models were 
> consistent with the range of expected behaviors for the whole complex 
> instruction set.  It would be fantastic if we could get access to, or 
> if someone with access could work with me to validate the changed simulator.
> 
> Meanwhile,  the existing VAX core instruction diagnostic EVKAA has 
> been helpful identifying some detailed problems with the changed 
> simulator.  There is diagnostic documentation for several VAX 
> processors which describes how to start and run EVKAA which varies by model 
> due to different console media.
> The diagnostic instructions specifically describe how to handle 
> diagnostic failures and these instructions direct the user to consult 
> the EVKAA Listing for details about the specific test that may be 
> failing.  That suggests that the Listing would be readily available 
> somewhere, maybe even packaged with the diagnostics on systems with 
> sufficiently large diagnostic media, or maybe on micro fiche???
> 
> Does anyone have access to said listing?
> 
> Additionally, I've seen EVKAA version 7.2 and 8.0.  Bob suggested that 
> the last version was 10.3.  If someone has later versions of EVKAA.exe 
> they would be appreciated (along with a Listing if it is available).
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> - Mark
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Simh@trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
> 



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