[Simh] SIMH/Vax woes

Tue Jun 7 05:13:08 EDT 2005

Hi,

if you need a cd ISO image for test booting, you could use the netbsd
image:

howto-page:
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/vax/emulator-howto.html

there is a link to the image:
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/iso/2.0/vaxcd.iso

I tried the same in the beginning before I got my  VMS CDs ...

BTW, why didn't you use the precompiled windows versions available at:
http://simh.trailing-edge.com/sources/simhv34-0-exe.zip
or
http://simh.trailing-edge.com/sources/simhv34-0-exe-ether.zip

at least for the windows environment (and for testing), I would recommend
that.
using this version, it would give you a stable base to see if something is
wrong with your image or your compilation.

for creating the ISO from the VMS CDs, I used Nero V5.5.x. In the
"recorder" menu, there is the option for "save track", just set the file
type to ISO,
click on "go" and you're done ! this should work with newer versions also,
and other programs might have the same capability.
this could be an alternative test to the linux dd to see if your CD is
really scrap.

Kind Regards / Cordialments / Saludos Cordiales / Vriendelijke Groeten /
Cumprimentos / Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Andreas Bucher

                      Brian Meadows                                                                                                         
                      <brian at wellsborocom         To:      simh at trailing-edge.com                                                           
                      puting.com>                 cc:                                                                                       
                      Sent by:                    Subject: Re: [Simh] SIMH/Vax woes                                                         
                      simh-bounces at traili                                                                                                   
                      ng-edge.com                                                                                                           

                      07.06.2005 10:10                                                                                                      

Thinking about the problem (described below) a little more, given
that the symptoms are exactly the same under both Linux and
Windows, which also means on two different PCs, it seems obvious
that the only common point of failure is the generated image of
the Hobbyist CD. I've tried generating that again, with the same
results. Unfortunately I only have the one means of generating
that, the Linux dd command, as my Windows CD software will create
a CD from an ISO image but apparently not vice versa.

Can I ask again for someone prepared to upload me a copy of their
known-to-be-working CD image to my FTP server? Please e-mail me
if you'd be willing to do this, brian at meadows.pair.com, I have a
very limited disk allocation on my FTP server and don't have room
for two images. If you have more space than me and want to put it
somewhere that I can download it, that would also be OK of
course, just send me the link.

Thanks,

Brian.

On Tue, 7 Jun 2005 06:56:52 +1000, pgaray at bigfoot.com wrote:

>
>I think the 0.9.1 version at http://www.tcpdump.org/ would be
>ok. But if you have the ram you want to emulate + 128M to run
>the emulator on xp and happy with the security there - you
>can. I think your linux knowledge is quite ok. I myself was
>not impressed that simh went to use a pcap that is not
>released on any platform - but it would be in any pre-compiled
>simh.
>

Well, I'm making some progress, but now I've come up against a
problem that I really don't know how to sort.

I've got both the Linux version and the Win2K version to the same
point - namely that the VAX console boots and goes through the
normal system tests with no visible problems. A 'show devices'
shows all the expected devices. Trying to boot from the CD image
then goes through the last couple of system tests, but then bombs
with an error

%BOOT-F-unknown processo
HALT instruction, PC:00004EC7  BLBS 4F49 4EC6

(that's not a typo, the 'r' is missing from 'processor').

I've dug through the system manager manual, and not too
surprisingly, the 'explanation' is that the processor isn't
recognised, and the 'advice' is to call Compaq. :-((

I get the same error message and error codes with both the
Ethernet and non-Ethernet versions of SIMH/VAX on both Windows
2000 and Linux.

I tried the procedure to patch the boot ROM to a uVAX 3900 per
the SIMH FAQ, just to see whether that would get me anywhere, but
nothing doing - that just gives me 'unknown device' errors when I
enter the commands.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks

Brian.

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