[Simh] Install of VMS4.6 on VAX 780 crashes

[Peter Allan]

I have managed to get hold of some versions of VMS, mostly VMS 4.X and I am
trying to install VMS4.6 on an emulated 780 using simh.

The sequence I have followed is:

Boot using the VMS 7.3 CD

Run BACKUP to copy the REQUIRED saveset from the VMS 4.6 emulated tape to an
RA81 disk with the command
   BACKUP/VERIFY  MTA0:REQUIRED/SAVE  DUA0:

However, when I boot from the RA81, expecting the installation sequence to
continue, I get

   VAX/VMS Version  KG  15-Jun-1987 10:00


**** FATAL BUG CHECK, VERSION =  KG  INVEXCEPTN, Exception while above
ASTDEL or on interrupt stack

    CURRENT PROCESS = SWAPPER

    REGISTER DUMP

        R0 = 00000008
        R1 = 04080000
        R2 = 00000000
        R3 = 00000000
        R4 = 80002748
        R5 = 00000000
        R6 = 00000000
        R7 = 00000000
        R8 = 00000000
        R9 = 00000000
        R10= 00000000
        R11= 00000000
        AP = 00000000
        FP = 00000000
        SP = 801F91D0
        PC = 80004862
        PSL= 04080009

    KERNEL/INTERRUPT STACK

        801F91D8  00000004
        801F91DC  00000000
        801F91E0  FFFFFFFD
        801F91E4  00000000
        801F91E8  00000000
        801F91EC  00000001
        801F91F0  00000003
        801F91F4  00000454
        801F91F8  8000A71B
        801F91FC  04080000

Reboot requested, PC: 80158B91 (HALT)


Has anyone any idea what is going wrong?

I successfully installed VMS 7.3 from the CD on the 780. Experiments give a
similar crash when running VMS 7.3 if I have too little memory on the 780
(less than 32MB), but no fiddling with the amount of memory seems to help
with VMS 4.6.

I think someone out there has VMS 4.6 running, so I trust it is possible and
I am doing something silly.

Peter Allan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/pipermail/simh/attachments/20101227/122da4b6/attachment-0002.html>