[Simh] AXP Emulation?

[Peter Lund]

On Mon, 2006-10-30 at 13:51 -0500, Brian Wheeler wrote:

> Yeah, it does look that way.  I've been doing some 'light' reading on
> the alpha arch reference handbook, and I've requested the Alpha
> architecture reference manual from the campus library (a bonus to being
> at a uni!)

The PDFs are avaiable (or at least were last I checked, about a year or
two ago).  On my shelf behind me I have printed out versions of the
Alpha Architecture Handbook (EC-QD2KC-TE) and the Alpha 21164PC (.28µm)
Microprocessor - Hardware Reference Manual (EC-RADPA-TE).

> I started playing with this the other day, and I've been implementing
> instructions as the bootstrap needs them :)   

:)

> The Firmware is a bit of an issue, though.  The images from hp don't
> seem to be in any sort of usable format:  they're not rom dumps (that I
> can tell, since they contain no text)

Does that matter?  You don't necessarily need the PAL code -- you can
(and probably should) implement it in C.

There is unfortunately more than one kind of PAL code:  Windows NT,
Digital Unix, and (Open)VMS.

Happily, both seemed reasonably well documented.

I've even had access to the source to some Alpha PAL code at University,
once.

-Peter