[Simh] Simh Digest, Vol 24, Issue 1

[A.Bucher at alcatel.de]

Well, for getting larger disks you have again two possibilities:

a) simh allows you to use the "rauser" option for the rq controllers, 
defining disks with 2GB in standard mode (64MB RAM) or 1000GB (!) in 
extended mode.
     (there was a bug in simh version 3.3x which prevented this, but I 
think it was solved in V3.4)
    This gives you up to 16 disks with 1TB each - should be enough for the 
near future ... ;-)
    In the VAX.INI, put the line SET RQn RAUSER=5000 and you get a 5 GB 
RA81 disk volume.

b) use VMS to build volume sets and the like (should give you a single 
disk volume with 16 TB ... if you have the diskspace on you host OS)

Btw, as recommended, read the vax_doc.txt provided in the source file set 
- some options are a bit hidden in the text, but after reading it some 
times, you might grasp the ideas ... and of course, some understanding of 
VMS and "real" VAXes might be helpful :-)

If you make any experiences with all that (positive or negative), it would 
be nice if you could post a short note about it.

regards, 
Andreas





Dr Robert Young <rcyoung at aliconsultants.com>
17.11.2005 06:06
 
        To:     Andreas BUCHER/DE/ALCATEL at ALCATEL
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: [Simh] Simh Digest, Vol 24, Issue 1


Thanks. This was very helpful.

Has anyone tried running software that lets you "concatenate" disks into a 
RAID type configuration (0, 0+1 or 5) to get a "larger" disk?

I just wonder how far the simulator can be pushed....

On Nov 16, 2005, at 1:29 PM, A.Bucher at alcatel.de wrote:


Hi, 

due to the structure of simh, the console ("simh>" prompt) is dead as long 
as the simulation is running (there are other implementations for other 
emulators, like herkules for the IBM/390, where the console is active and 
you can simulate "physical tape mounts" by live re-connecting another 
image). I asked about that some time ago (for about the same reason as 
you), but I seems this would require a complete rewrite of the basics of 
simh ... 

Two possibilities for "changing tapes": Either mount all tape images you 
will ever need to different devices (you might need to enable all 
available controllers and devices), but this is still a limit. 

The other chance is to stop the simulation (freeze the emulated machine) 
and thus activate the console again at the correct moment, then re-assign 
the tape image, and continue. 

Actually, I never really tried, but it should work ... 

To get more disk drives, enable rqb, rqc and rqd (first one is rq and 
enabled by default). This gives you 4x4=16 disks. 
For tapes, it seems there is only one controller TQ with devices tq0 - tq3 
(need to be anabled), and a TSV tape (ts) with one unit only, which makes 
a total of 5 tapes. To be complete, you could use the RL controller for 
more disks (pretty small ones ... RL01/02 cartridges, perhaps a 
possibility for images, but still no tapes) and the RY for 4 floppies. 

I am waiting for someone to write a HSC emulation ... would give us really 
new possibilities :-) 

Another idea could be to have a second emulation (or several) running some 
of the network tape server utilities, this gives you access to as many 
tapes as you run virtual machines ... 

Besides, for converting tapes to images and vice versa, simply keep a 
"real" vax with a tape drive connected with your simulated ones and do 
network copies - they won't notice the difference ;-) 

regards, 
Andreas 




Dr Robert Young <rcyoung at aliconsultants.com> 
Sent by: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com
16.11.2005 17:59 
        
        To:        simh at trailing-edge.com 
        cc:         
        Subject:        Re: [Simh] Simh Digest, Vol 24, Issue 1



If you are working with tape images assigned at SIMH startup, how do you 
"change" images if you are reading a multivolume tape backup? Assign the 
second image to another "tape" drive device (SIMH starts up with 4)? 

Which brings up another question. I see on SIMH that you have 3 drives by 
default, 1 cd drive, and 4 tape units. Can you add additional disk/tape/cd 
units or is what shows up "hard coded"? 


On Nov 16, 2005, at 9:11 AM, simh-request at trailing-edge.com wrote: 

For reading multivolume save sets this works fine because VMS 
backup (or RSX BRU or whatever) knows from the label information 
that there's a continuation tape. 
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