[Simh] What is the file VAX/vmb.exe for?

[Peter Lund]

On Wed, 2007-08-29 at 08:50 -0400, Thomas Pfau wrote:

> The 11/780 had a small LSI-11 that performed console functions.  During
> the  bootstrap process, the LSI would load VMB.EXE into the 11/780's
> memory, load registers with values telling it what to do and the start the
> VAX processor executing this program.  VMB.EXE would then start the
> bootstrap process.

Thank you.

> With SIMH, there is no LSI-11 so SIMH itself needs to get VMB.EXE into the
> VAX memory to start the bootstrap process.
> 
> > What is the relation between that and ka655x.bin?
> 
> VMB.EXE is a VAX program.  KA655X.BIN is microcode.

No, it isn't.  It is VAX machine code that implements boot/console stuff
like on the VLSI VAXen that did not have a service processor; the whole
thing ran on the same CPU.

So vmb.exe and ka655x.bin are different kinds of bootstrappers.
Interresting... :)

I wonder what the copyright/license restrictions are for vmb.exe.  Can
Debian include it in their packages?

-Peter