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

[Peter Allan]

Thanks to Mark, Wilm, Greg and Rob for advice and help with my problem.

I have now managed to do the following:

1) Install VMS 4.6 on an emulated microVAX 3900 on Linux
2) Use that system disk on an emulated microVAX 3900 on Windows XP
3) Use that system disk on an emulated VAX 780 on Windows XP
4) Install VMS 4.6 from scratch on an emulated VAX 780 on Windows XP

BUT

I am still failing to get the 780 emulator to work properly on Linux (CentOS
5.5). I tried copying the system disk that worked on Windows XP back to
Linux, but I get the same problem as below, i.e. it crashes in SWAPPER.

I would be tempted to say that there is a problem with the 780 emulator on
Linux, except that I successfully installed VMS 7.3 a couple of days ago.

So, I have made considerable progress (thanks again to those mentioned
above), but I still cannot get VMS 4.6 running on a 780 on Linux, which was
my main target.

Any further ideas?

Peter Allan
On 27 December 2010 11:30, Peter Allan <petermallan at googlemail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
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