From priyachinc at gmail.com  Thu Jan  2 08:02:51 2014
From: priyachinc at gmail.com (Priya Chincholikar)
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 18:32:51 +0530
Subject: [Simh] Fwd: Red Hat VM version
In-Reply-To: <CABBrNDePjL9F+wgK6yBrT7izBcStmgGPa19j-yBC6HaBTcbfrw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABBrNDePjL9F+wgK6yBrT7izBcStmgGPa19j-yBC6HaBTcbfrw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABBrNDf4P5W4PG4h1sXxi2D6rEVrFDswWKNszAy-H0QA-0NXpw@mail.gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Priya Chincholikar <priyachinc at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 12:31 PM
Subject: Red Hat VM version
To: Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com>


Hi Mark,

I am not a paid user of Red Hat either, I have a Red Hat VM partitioned
along with windows on my system. The libpcap package was downloaded and
installed manually by me.

My aim is to run SIMH on this host and use the .vmdk on other systems.
Attached file should help.

Thanks,
Priya
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From captainkirk359 at gmail.com  Wed Jan  8 15:10:05 2014
From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 15:10:05 -0500
Subject: [Simh] Possible TIME and DATE Environment Variable Improvements
Message-ID: <CAKUYOb2kdcoQR+Sr6LmXdVDZg6WGOkgGXc3-yJfh=zWrDOWLPQ@mail.gmail.com>

I don't do much simulator scripting, but I have found one slight
inconvenience with regards to the %DATE% and %TIME% variables.

I'm trying to setup my simulator command file to attach a text file to
the simulators LPT that is dated and timed, so I don't accidentally
wipe out previous LPT listings (or make them grow to very large
sizes). As they are at present, the %DATE% and %TIME% (and the
%CTIME%, but that can be left alone) variable are really not suited
for direct use as a part of creating a file name.

Would it be possible to reformat the %DATE% variable to be ISO 8601
compliant? That is, change the forward slashes to hyphens. Secondly,
would it be possible to make the %TIME% variable either return the
time without the colons? (ISO 8601 "basic" format, as opposed to the
current ISO 8601 "extended" format.)


Alternatively, if there is some way to "massage" a the text strings
reported by %DATE% and %TIME% to be something usable for a filename in
the simulator command language I would not mind that either.


As to what I'm trying to do:
ATTACH LPT listing_%DATE%_%TIME%.txt
Though, as mentioned previously, the current return strings for %DATE%
and %TIME% will make -- at least Windows -- complain.

Thank you,
Christian

-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
Contact information available upon request.

From Mark at infocomm.com  Wed Jan  8 15:55:49 2014
From: Mark at infocomm.com (Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 12:55:49 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Possible TIME and DATE Environment Variable Improvements
In-Reply-To: <CAKUYOb2kdcoQR+Sr6LmXdVDZg6WGOkgGXc3-yJfh=zWrDOWLPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKUYOb2kdcoQR+Sr6LmXdVDZg6WGOkgGXc3-yJfh=zWrDOWLPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D58D3327@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>

On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
> I don't do much simulator scripting, but I have found one slight
> inconvenience with regards to the %DATE% and %TIME% variables.
> 
> I'm trying to setup my simulator command file to attach a text file to the
> simulators LPT that is dated and timed, so I don't accidentally wipe out
> previous LPT listings (or make them grow to very large sizes). As they are at
> present, the %DATE% and %TIME% (and the %CTIME%, but that can be left
> alone) variable are really not suited for direct use as a part of creating a file
> name.
> 
> Would it be possible to reformat the %DATE% variable to be ISO 8601
> compliant? That is, change the forward slashes to hyphens. 

Done.

> Secondly, would it be possible to make the %TIME% variable either return 
> the time without the colons? (ISO 8601 "basic" format, as opposed to the
>  current ISO 8601 "extended" format.)

There now is a %STIME% which returns the time as hh_mm_ss.

> Alternatively, if there is some way to "massage" a the text strings reported
> by %DATE% and %TIME% to be something usable for a filename in the
> simulator command language I would not mind that either.
> 
> 
> As to what I'm trying to do:
> ATTACH LPT listing_%DATE%_%TIME%.txt
> Though, as mentioned previously, the current return strings for %DATE% and
> %TIME% will make -- at least Windows -- complain.
> 
> Thank you,
> Christian

That should work now.  The Windows binaries will be updated in a couple of minutes.

- Mark


From captainkirk359 at gmail.com  Wed Jan  8 22:47:02 2014
From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 22:47:02 -0500
Subject: [Simh] Possible TIME and DATE Environment Variable Improvements
In-Reply-To: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D58D3327@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
References: <CAKUYOb2kdcoQR+Sr6LmXdVDZg6WGOkgGXc3-yJfh=zWrDOWLPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D58D3327@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
Message-ID: <CAKUYOb2j+rbz3pmukUMxU4M-Mdpe5PMNiHadwjCh0F=s9qSsoA@mail.gmail.com>

On 8 January 2014 15:55, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com> wrote:
> Done.
>
{snip}
>
> There now is a %STIME% which returns the time as hh_mm_ss.
>
Excellent. ISO 8601 date format makes me a happy camper; and STIME is
quite useful. (Underscores look odd; but then again HHMMSS can be
confused for YYMMDD or some other truncated date format).

> That should work now.  The Windows binaries will be updated in a couple of minutes.
>
> - Mark
>
They work excellently, though I only managed to try them just now.


Thank you very much.

Christian


-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
Contact information available upon request.

From phiber at phiber.com  Thu Jan 16 02:16:20 2014
From: phiber at phiber.com (Mark Abene)
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
Message-ID: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>

By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.

-Mark
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From gerry77 at mail.com  Thu Jan 16 08:01:00 2014
From: gerry77 at mail.com (G.)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>

On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:

> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.

Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
(V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)

HTH,
G.


From phiber at phiber.com  Thu Jan 16 12:20:31 2014
From: phiber at phiber.com (Mark Abene)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:20:31 -0800
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <CAPCE1iYp1-iBkA1NU1a7=sQYNq-KFsONrSwroG9Gc2JGb=uDPg@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks!  I'll give it a shot.

-Mark


On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 5:01 AM, G. <gerry77 at mail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:
>
>> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
>> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.
>
> Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
> (V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
> work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
> to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)
>
> HTH,
> G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Simh mailing list
> Simh at trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh

From simh at alderson.users.panix.com  Thu Jan 16 19:38:13 2014
From: simh at alderson.users.panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 19:38:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com> (message from G. on
 Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100)
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>

> From: G. <gerry77 at mail.com>
> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100

> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:

>> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
>> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.

> Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
> (V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
> work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
> to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)

Given that this question was raised in a SimH context, I have to point out that
SimH only emulates a KS-10 processor, which is limited to TOPS-20 v4.1, and
which does not support the DN20 interface (a PDP-11/40 [or /34?]) which does
DMA via the DTE20 into KL-10 memory.  Looking at the tape on Trailing Edge, it
specifies the DN20, so I think that this is a non-starter.

Someone please point out if I'm wrong about this.

                                                                Rich

From b4 at gewt.net  Thu Jan 16 19:39:33 2014
From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 19:39:33 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
 <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1401161939120.75793@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>

On Thu, 16 Jan 2014, Rich Alderson wrote:

>> From: G. <gerry77 at mail.com>
>> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100
>
>> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:
>
>>> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
>>> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.
>
>> Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
>> (V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
>> work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
>> to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)
>
> Given that this question was raised in a SimH context, I have to point out that
> SimH only emulates a KS-10 processor, which is limited to TOPS-20 v4.1, and
> which does not support the DN20 interface (a PDP-11/40 [or /34?]) which does
> DMA via the DTE20 into KL-10 memory.  Looking at the tape on Trailing Edge, it
> specifies the DN20, so I think that this is a non-starter.
>
> Someone please point out if I'm wrong about this.
>

Someone was implementing DMC/KMC emulation for SIMH, iirc.

>                                                                Rich
> _______________________________________________
> Simh mailing list
> Simh at trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
>
>

-- 
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects

From litt at ieee.org  Thu Jan 16 20:27:25 2014
From: litt at ieee.org (Timothe Litt)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 20:27:25 -0500
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
 <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>
Message-ID: <52D886FD.9090802@ieee.org>

> Someone please point out if I'm wrong about this.
It's not that simple.  You are, and you aren't.

TOPS-10/20 PSI (X.25) required a DN20; the X.25 gateway software lived 
there.

The KS hardware could not connect directly to the X.25 network. The KDP 
could have done it, but no driver or gateway software was written.  The 
SimH KDP emulation does not support bit-stuffing.

The gateway just made the X.25 connection look like a DECnet circuit, 
albeit it an expensive one.    In the Phase IV DNA, X.25 is a data link 
layer parallel to ethernet and DDCMP.

The gateway in the DN20 was accessed by a standard DECnet logical link 
by the PSI utilities, usually from the local host.

A KS could get to the gateway using DECnet, modulo the routing 
restrictions/hacks of the OS version.

I'm not sure about the VAX implementation - I think the 10/20 PSI (the 
utiltiies, such as x29pad) could talk thru it.  I never tried it.  It 
should have worked.

The NML has entity definitions for X.25 circuits, and any DECnet Phase 
IV or greater NCP can mange one (whatever node it lives on), subject to 
the usual privs.

So yes, the KS can't physically connect to the X.25 network.  But it can 
use a gateway elsewhere.

And it can manage one.  Sometimes.  X.25 Circuits were introduced in 
Phase IV.  The NCP in TOPS-20 on the KS wouldn't have had the command 
tables.  The Phase-IV version did.

This communication may not represent my employer's views,
if any, on the matters discussed.

On 16-Jan-14 19:38, Rich Alderson wrote:
>> From: G. <gerry77 at mail.com>
>> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100
>> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:
>>> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
>>> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.
>> Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
>> (V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
>> work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
>> to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)
> Given that this question was raised in a SimH context, I have to point out that
> SimH only emulates a KS-10 processor, which is limited to TOPS-20 v4.1, and
> which does not support the DN20 interface (a PDP-11/40 [or /34?]) which does
> DMA via the DTE20 into KL-10 memory.  Looking at the tape on Trailing Edge, it
> specifies the DN20, so I think that this is a non-starter.
>
> Someone please point out if I'm wrong about this.
>
>                                                                  Rich
> _______________________________________________
> Simh mailing list
> Simh at trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh


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From captainkirk359 at gmail.com  Wed Jan 22 11:16:43 2014
From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove)
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 11:16:43 -0500
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87 baseline
 system disk with insufficient memory
Message-ID: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>

Hello:

I've noticed an odd issue. When booting the aforementioned baseline
RSX-11/M+ disk, with 256K of memory, RSX-11 doesn't have enough RAM to
work when it tries to run the startup script. This happens as the
system doesn't have enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space; so
RSX-11 gets stuck in an infinite loop repeating:
<TIME>  *** GEN    Checkpoint space allocation failure
Where <TIME> is the current time in HH:MM:SS format. The CPU is
working, as you can see the time field counting properly. However, the
simulator completely locks up otherwise; you can't Ctrl+E to the sim>
prompt, you can't Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Z the program within RSX-11 itself.
Trying to exit the SIMH simulator doesn't work. The only way to kill
it is via the task manager (on Windows).

I'm using the 14 day old Windows binary. Currently this is happening
on a Windows 7 Professional SP1 workstation at my university. I'll
have to check on my W7 Pro SP1 desktop at home, just to see if it is a
problem with this specific machine, or with the executable itself.


Regards,
Christian

-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
Contact information available upon request.

From Mark at infocomm.com  Wed Jan 22 11:30:37 2014
From: Mark at infocomm.com (Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm)
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 08:30:37 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87
 baseline system disk with insufficient memory
Message-ID: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6CA@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
> Hello:
> 
> I've noticed an odd issue. When booting the aforementioned baseline RSX-
> 11/M+ disk, with 256K of memory, RSX-11 doesn't have enough RAM to work
> when it tries to run the startup script. This happens as the system doesn't
> have enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space; so
> RSX-11 gets stuck in an infinite loop repeating:
> <TIME>  *** GEN    Checkpoint space allocation failure
> Where <TIME> is the current time in HH:MM:SS format. The CPU is working,
> as you can see the time field counting properly. However, the simulator
> completely locks up otherwise; you can't Ctrl+E to the sim> prompt, you can't
> Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Z the program within RSX-11 itself.
> Trying to exit the SIMH simulator doesn't work. The only way to kill it is via
> the task manager (on Windows).
> 
> I'm using the 14 day old Windows binary. Currently this is happening on a
> Windows 7 Professional SP1 workstation at my university. I'll have to check
> on my W7 Pro SP1 desktop at home, just to see if it is a problem with this
> specific machine, or with the executable itself.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Christian

Hi Christian,

Thanks for this report.  

This does sound odd.  

I can't speak to what to expect when you configure a simulator with insufficient resources for the operating system to run, but your observation that Ctrl-E doesn't provide a way back to the "sim>" prompt suggests something strange in the simulator itself.

Please create an issue at https://github.com/simh/simh/issues to report and track this problem.

I doubt it has anything to do with the particular windows system you are running on, so you don't have to run back home to test.  The configuration file you're running with would be useful.

Thanks.

- Mark


From bqt at softjar.se  Wed Jan 22 11:34:31 2014
From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 08:34:31 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87
 baseline system disk with insufficient memory
In-Reply-To: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <52DFF317.1060003@softjar.se>

On 2014-01-22 08:16, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
> Hello:
>
> I've noticed an odd issue. When booting the aforementioned baseline
> RSX-11/M+ disk, with 256K of memory, RSX-11 doesn't have enough RAM to
> work when it tries to run the startup script. This happens as the
> system doesn't have enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space; so
> RSX-11 gets stuck in an infinite loop repeating:
> <TIME>  *** GEN    Checkpoint space allocation failure
> Where <TIME> is the current time in HH:MM:SS format. The CPU is
> working, as you can see the time field counting properly. However, the
> simulator completely locks up otherwise; you can't Ctrl+E to the sim>
> prompt, you can't Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Z the program within RSX-11 itself.

Sounds like a problem in simh, yes.

But just to clarify one thing with RSX here. The problem is not about 
not having enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space. What the error 
means is that RSX do not have a checkpoint space.
Checkpoint space is the RSX term for disk space used to swap out running 
tasks to, in order to free memory.

But yes, the basic problem is that you have too little memory. The 
startup script will setup a checkpoint space for you, but you don't even 
make it that far... The basic tasks activated at startup is already 
requiring more memory than you have.

	Johnny


From captainkirk359 at gmail.com  Thu Jan 23 09:27:12 2014
From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 09:27:12 -0500
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87
 baseline system disk with insufficient memory
In-Reply-To: <52DFF317.1060003@softjar.se>
References: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <52DFF317.1060003@softjar.se>
Message-ID: <CAKUYOb1GWSp-ezybQDoYkOMMU4uz0pbAWx0zm=0Gy+8gndX65Q@mail.gmail.com>

On 22 January 2014 11:30, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com> wrote:
> Hi Christian,
>
> Thanks for this report.
>
> This does sound odd.
>
> I can't speak to what to expect when you configure a simulator with insufficient resources for the operating system to run, but your observation that Ctrl-E doesn't provide a way back to the "sim>" prompt suggests something strange in the simulator itself.
>
> Please create an issue at https://github.com/simh/simh/issues to report and track this problem.
>
> I doubt it has anything to do with the particular windows system you are running on, so you don't have to run back home to test.  The configuration file you're running with would be useful.
>
> Thanks.
>
> - Mark
Well, actually I didn't expect the RSX-11/S baseline system to require
more than 256KB of RAM, but I am apparently wrong. (I think it's
RSX-11/S that is used for the baseline, I'm not sure. Wholly new to
the world of RSX-11.) Trying it with 384KB of RAM worked fine (it
didn't crash kill the sim). And the bug is reproducible on my home W7
system as well.

As a further test; I attempted to bootstrap the baseline system on a
256KB system, with the system console directed to a telnet port as
opposed to running straight from the SIMH executable. While the RSX-11
baseline still dies, the simulator itself doesn't. (I.e. I can send a
Ctrl+E and the simulator does halt to the sim> prompt.)


I'll open a proper issue/trouble ticket on the GitHub shortly.



On 22 January 2014 11:34, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
> Sounds like a problem in simh, yes.
>
> But just to clarify one thing with RSX here. The problem is not about not
> having enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space. What the error means is
> that RSX do not have a checkpoint space.
> Checkpoint space is the RSX term for disk space used to swap out running
> tasks to, in order to free memory.
>
> But yes, the basic problem is that you have too little memory. The startup
> script will setup a checkpoint space for you, but you don't even make it
> that far... The basic tasks activated at startup is already requiring more
> memory than you have.
>
>         Johnny
I'm brand new to the RSX-11 game so I didn't know that. As I mentioned
in my reply to Mark, I think the baseline install system is RSX-11/S,
which I thought had very small memory requirements. Plus it seems a
bit of a troll on the part of the RSX-11 developers, it won't run on
an 18-bit system, but will run a 22-bit system with just 128KB more
RAM; compare to RSTS/E 10.1 which works fine on a 256KB system.


In any case, this appears to be a problem with SIMH itself, not so
much with RSX-11 (even if it is a misconfiguration issue that causes
RSX-11 to crash and show the bug).


Regards,
Christian

-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0

From bqt at softjar.se  Thu Jan 23 10:19:06 2014
From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 07:19:06 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87
 baseline system disk with insufficient memory
In-Reply-To: <CAKUYOb1GWSp-ezybQDoYkOMMU4uz0pbAWx0zm=0Gy+8gndX65Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>	<52DFF317.1060003@softjar.se>
 <CAKUYOb1GWSp-ezybQDoYkOMMU4uz0pbAWx0zm=0Gy+8gndX65Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <52E132EA.5080808@softjar.se>

On 2014-01-23 06:27, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
> On 22 January 2014 11:30, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com> wrote:
>> Hi Christian,
>>
>> Thanks for this report.
>>
>> This does sound odd.
>>
>> I can't speak to what to expect when you configure a simulator with insufficient resources for the operating system to run, but your observation that Ctrl-E doesn't provide a way back to the "sim>" prompt suggests something strange in the simulator itself.
>>
>> Please create an issue at https://github.com/simh/simh/issues to report and track this problem.
>>
>> I doubt it has anything to do with the particular windows system you are running on, so you don't have to run back home to test.  The configuration file you're running with would be useful.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> - Mark
> Well, actually I didn't expect the RSX-11/S baseline system to require
> more than 256KB of RAM, but I am apparently wrong. (I think it's
> RSX-11/S that is used for the baseline, I'm not sure. Wholly new to
> the world of RSX-11.) Trying it with 384KB of RAM worked fine (it
> didn't crash kill the sim). And the bug is reproducible on my home W7
> system as well.
>
> As a further test; I attempted to bootstrap the baseline system on a
> 256KB system, with the system console directed to a telnet port as
> opposed to running straight from the SIMH executable. While the RSX-11
> baseline still dies, the simulator itself doesn't. (I.e. I can send a
> Ctrl+E and the simulator does halt to the sim> prompt.)

As far as I could see in your initial post, you were booting 
RSX-11M-PLUS, not -11S/M.

There is a huge difference between these systems. -11M will boot fine in 
much less memory, and -11S does not even come with a bootable baseline, 
since you have to tailor it on another host system.

	Johnny

>
>
> I'll open a proper issue/trouble ticket on the GitHub shortly.
>
>
>
> On 22 January 2014 11:34, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>> Sounds like a problem in simh, yes.
>>
>> But just to clarify one thing with RSX here. The problem is not about not
>> having enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space. What the error means is
>> that RSX do not have a checkpoint space.
>> Checkpoint space is the RSX term for disk space used to swap out running
>> tasks to, in order to free memory.
>>
>> But yes, the basic problem is that you have too little memory. The startup
>> script will setup a checkpoint space for you, but you don't even make it
>> that far... The basic tasks activated at startup is already requiring more
>> memory than you have.
>>
>>          Johnny
> I'm brand new to the RSX-11 game so I didn't know that. As I mentioned
> in my reply to Mark, I think the baseline install system is RSX-11/S,
> which I thought had very small memory requirements. Plus it seems a
> bit of a troll on the part of the RSX-11 developers, it won't run on
> an 18-bit system, but will run a 22-bit system with just 128KB more
> RAM; compare to RSTS/E 10.1 which works fine on a 256KB system.
>
>
> In any case, this appears to be a problem with SIMH itself, not so
> much with RSX-11 (even if it is a misconfiguration issue that causes
> RSX-11 to crash and show the bug).
>
>
> Regards,
> Christian
>


From priyachinc at gmail.com  Fri Jan 24 06:39:37 2014
From: priyachinc at gmail.com (Priya Chincholikar)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 17:09:37 +0530
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
Message-ID: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a
way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.

*sim> show cpu*
*CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT*
*        64MB, HALT to console*
*sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS*
*sim> show cpu*
*CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT*
*        64MB, HALT to console*

Host OS used is Linux. fc18.

Thanks,
Priya
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From Mark at infocomm.com  Fri Jan 24 08:25:30 2014
From: Mark at infocomm.com (Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 05:25:30 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
In-Reply-To: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>

Hi Priya,

This is one of those "it works for me" cases.  Idling works fine for a VMS guest on my fc18 x86 test system.

What is the output of "SHOW VERSION" done at the "sim>" prompt?
What does your configuration file look like?


-          Mark

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Priya Chincholikar
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:40 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi,

The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.

sim> show cpu
CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console
sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS
sim> show cpu
CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console

Host OS used is Linux. fc18.

Thanks,
Priya


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From david.hittner at ngc.com  Fri Jan 24 15:43:14 2014
From: david.hittner at ngc.com (Hittner, David T (IS))
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 20:43:14 +0000
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
In-Reply-To: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
References: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
 <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
Message-ID: <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>

And what version of VMS are you running? Different versions of VMS have different idle characteristics..

Dave

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 8:26 AM
To: Priya Chincholikar; simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi Priya,

This is one of those "it works for me" cases.  Idling works fine for a VMS guest on my fc18 x86 test system.

What is the output of "SHOW VERSION" done at the "sim>" prompt?
What does your configuration file look like?


-          Mark

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com> [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Priya Chincholikar
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:40 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi,

The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.

sim> show cpu
CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console
sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS
sim> show cpu
CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console

Host OS used is Linux. fc18.

Thanks,
Priya


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From oboguev at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 24 15:52:14 2014
From: oboguev at yahoo.com (Sergey Oboguev)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 12:52:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
In-Reply-To: <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>
References: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
 <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
 <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>
Message-ID: <1390596734.51656.YahooMailNeo@web184303.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>

Could it perhaps be a canonical case of Linux build with low CONFIG_HZ such as 100 or around?



________________________________
 From: "Hittner, David T (IS)" <david.hittner at ngc.com>
To: Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com>; Priya Chincholikar <priyachinc at gmail.com>; "simh at trailing-edge.com" <simh at trailing-edge.com> 
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
 


 
And what version of VMS are you running? Different versions of VMS have different idle characteristics..
?
Dave
?
From:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 8:26 AM
To: Priya Chincholikar; simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
?
Hi Priya,
?
This is one of those ?it works for me? cases.? Idling works fine for a VMS guest on my fc18 x86 test system.
?
What is the output of ?SHOW VERSION? done at the ?sim>? prompt?
What does your configuration file look like?
?
-????????? Mark
?
From:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Priya Chincholikar
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:40 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
?
Hi,
?
The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.
?
sim> show cpu
CPU ? ? idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
? ? ? ? 64MB, HALT to console
sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS
sim> show cpu
CPU ? ? idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
? ? ? ? 64MB, HALT to console
?
Host OS used is Linux. fc18.?
?
Thanks,
Priya?
?
?
_______________________________________________
Simh mailing list
Simh at trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
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From Mark at infocomm.com  Fri Jan 24 16:11:39 2014
From: Mark at infocomm.com (Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 13:11:39 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
In-Reply-To: <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>
References: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
 <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
 <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>
Message-ID: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C700@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>

True, but the current idling logic in the VAX simulators should detect and be well behaved under all available versions of VMS as well as when sitting idle at the console boot rom prompt (>>>).

Sergey suggest that the problem may be related to too large a host OS clock tick.  This turns out not to be the case either.

Priya sent me the following SHOW VERSION output:

MicroVAX 3900 simulator V4.0-0 Beta
        Simulator Framework Capabilities:
                64b data
                64b addresses
                Ethernet support
                Idle/Throttling support is available
                Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) support
                RAW disk and CD/DVD ROM support
                Asynchronous I/O support
        Host Platform:
                Compiler: GCC 4.7.2 20121109 (Red Hat 4.7.2-8)
                Simulator Compiled: Nov  5 2013 at 15:19:27
                Memory Access: Little Endian
                Memory Pointer Size: 32 bits
                Large File (>2GB) support
                OS clock tick size: 2ms
                OS: Linux localhost.localdomain 3.6.10-4.fc18.i686.PAE #1 SMP Tue Dec 11 18:15:08 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

        git commit id: 32b8f063


The OS clock tick size of 2 is the same as on my FC18 test system.

I also received a copy of the config file that is being used.

I responded with the following:

Your vax.ini file doesn't have a "SET CPU IDLE" command.  Once that command has been issued, idle detection may take up to 20 seconds before the running simulator's clock calibration will allow idling.  Normally this 20 seconds would happen during the boot of the simulated system and not be noticed.  Clearly idling will ONLY be noticed on the host system when the guest system is actually idling.  What operating system (and version) is running on the guest?  How do you know the guest system is actually idle?

We'll see what comes back....


-          Mark

From: Hittner, David T (IS) [mailto:david.hittner at ngc.com]
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 12:43 PM
To: Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm; Priya Chincholikar; simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: RE: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

And what version of VMS are you running? Different versions of VMS have different idle characteristics..

Dave

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com> [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 8:26 AM
To: Priya Chincholikar; simh at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi Priya,

This is one of those "it works for me" cases.  Idling works fine for a VMS guest on my fc18 x86 test system.

What is the output of "SHOW VERSION" done at the "sim>" prompt?
What does your configuration file look like?


-          Mark

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com> [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Priya Chincholikar
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:40 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi,

The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.

sim> show cpu
CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console
sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS
sim> show cpu
CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console

Host OS used is Linux. fc18.

Thanks,
Priya


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From geneirwin at comcast.net  Mon Jan 27 14:51:06 2014
From: geneirwin at comcast.net (Gene Irwin)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 11:51:06 -0800
Subject: [Simh] PDP11 simulator and .TAP files from bitsavers
Message-ID: <52E6B8AA.70200@comcast.net>

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the mailing list, forgive me if this has been asked.

I'm using the 4.0 release of simh and I've tried everything I can think 
of to make the tape images from bitsavers work.

There are 5 magtape images in the RSTS 7 folder and I have tried in vain 
to mount them using every option available.

I can not get the sysgen image to boot.  So I built from the RL01 images 
in the software kits area of the simh site.

With RSTS running I have tried to mount the rsx distribution tape 
(missing from the RL01 images on the kits page) and
have yet to successfully mount any magtape images with the pdp11 simulator.

I have recopied the image repeatedly and just can't get it to mount 
properly either to boot or read in RSTS.

Any ideas?

From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com  Mon Jan 27 16:27:41 2014
From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Jarratt RMA)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 21:27:41 +0000
Subject: [Simh] PDP11 simulator and .TAP files from bitsavers
In-Reply-To: <52E6B8AA.70200@comcast.net>
References: <52E6B8AA.70200@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <CAArkeuiW9+0+f8dObYRhn2BT+GXk0F7Kzc2TBmbqUrYy0bx+_A@mail.gmail.com>

I can't help with the problem, but it might help if you could post the
commands you used in SIMH and the commands you used in RSTS. That might
help others to help.

Regards

Rob


On 27 January 2014 19:51, Gene Irwin <geneirwin at comcast.net> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm new to the mailing list, forgive me if this has been asked.
>
> I'm using the 4.0 release of simh and I've tried everything I can think of
> to make the tape images from bitsavers work.
>
> There are 5 magtape images in the RSTS 7 folder and I have tried in vain
> to mount them using every option available.
>
> I can not get the sysgen image to boot.  So I built from the RL01 images
> in the software kits area of the simh site.
>
> With RSTS running I have tried to mount the rsx distribution tape (missing
> from the RL01 images on the kits page) and
> have yet to successfully mount any magtape images with the pdp11 simulator.
>
> I have recopied the image repeatedly and just can't get it to mount
> properly either to boot or read in RSTS.
>
> Any ideas?
> _______________________________________________
> Simh mailing list
> Simh at trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
>
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From priyachinc at gmail.com  Thu Jan  2 08:02:51 2014
From: priyachinc at gmail.com (Priya Chincholikar)
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2014 18:32:51 +0530
Subject: [Simh] Fwd: Red Hat VM version
In-Reply-To: <CABBrNDePjL9F+wgK6yBrT7izBcStmgGPa19j-yBC6HaBTcbfrw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABBrNDePjL9F+wgK6yBrT7izBcStmgGPa19j-yBC6HaBTcbfrw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABBrNDf4P5W4PG4h1sXxi2D6rEVrFDswWKNszAy-H0QA-0NXpw@mail.gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Priya Chincholikar <priyachinc at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 12:31 PM
Subject: Red Hat VM version
To: Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com>


Hi Mark,

I am not a paid user of Red Hat either, I have a Red Hat VM partitioned
along with windows on my system. The libpcap package was downloaded and
installed manually by me.

My aim is to run SIMH on this host and use the .vmdk on other systems.
Attached file should help.

Thanks,
Priya
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From captainkirk359 at gmail.com  Wed Jan  8 15:10:05 2014
From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 15:10:05 -0500
Subject: [Simh] Possible TIME and DATE Environment Variable Improvements
Message-ID: <CAKUYOb2kdcoQR+Sr6LmXdVDZg6WGOkgGXc3-yJfh=zWrDOWLPQ@mail.gmail.com>

I don't do much simulator scripting, but I have found one slight
inconvenience with regards to the %DATE% and %TIME% variables.

I'm trying to setup my simulator command file to attach a text file to
the simulators LPT that is dated and timed, so I don't accidentally
wipe out previous LPT listings (or make them grow to very large
sizes). As they are at present, the %DATE% and %TIME% (and the
%CTIME%, but that can be left alone) variable are really not suited
for direct use as a part of creating a file name.

Would it be possible to reformat the %DATE% variable to be ISO 8601
compliant? That is, change the forward slashes to hyphens. Secondly,
would it be possible to make the %TIME% variable either return the
time without the colons? (ISO 8601 "basic" format, as opposed to the
current ISO 8601 "extended" format.)


Alternatively, if there is some way to "massage" a the text strings
reported by %DATE% and %TIME% to be something usable for a filename in
the simulator command language I would not mind that either.


As to what I'm trying to do:
ATTACH LPT listing_%DATE%_%TIME%.txt
Though, as mentioned previously, the current return strings for %DATE%
and %TIME% will make -- at least Windows -- complain.

Thank you,
Christian

-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
Contact information available upon request.


From Mark at infocomm.com  Wed Jan  8 15:55:49 2014
From: Mark at infocomm.com (Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 12:55:49 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Possible TIME and DATE Environment Variable Improvements
In-Reply-To: <CAKUYOb2kdcoQR+Sr6LmXdVDZg6WGOkgGXc3-yJfh=zWrDOWLPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKUYOb2kdcoQR+Sr6LmXdVDZg6WGOkgGXc3-yJfh=zWrDOWLPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D58D3327@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>

On Wednesday, January 08, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
> I don't do much simulator scripting, but I have found one slight
> inconvenience with regards to the %DATE% and %TIME% variables.
> 
> I'm trying to setup my simulator command file to attach a text file to the
> simulators LPT that is dated and timed, so I don't accidentally wipe out
> previous LPT listings (or make them grow to very large sizes). As they are at
> present, the %DATE% and %TIME% (and the %CTIME%, but that can be left
> alone) variable are really not suited for direct use as a part of creating a file
> name.
> 
> Would it be possible to reformat the %DATE% variable to be ISO 8601
> compliant? That is, change the forward slashes to hyphens. 

Done.

> Secondly, would it be possible to make the %TIME% variable either return 
> the time without the colons? (ISO 8601 "basic" format, as opposed to the
>  current ISO 8601 "extended" format.)

There now is a %STIME% which returns the time as hh_mm_ss.

> Alternatively, if there is some way to "massage" a the text strings reported
> by %DATE% and %TIME% to be something usable for a filename in the
> simulator command language I would not mind that either.
> 
> 
> As to what I'm trying to do:
> ATTACH LPT listing_%DATE%_%TIME%.txt
> Though, as mentioned previously, the current return strings for %DATE% and
> %TIME% will make -- at least Windows -- complain.
> 
> Thank you,
> Christian

That should work now.  The Windows binaries will be updated in a couple of minutes.

- Mark



From captainkirk359 at gmail.com  Wed Jan  8 22:47:02 2014
From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 22:47:02 -0500
Subject: [Simh] Possible TIME and DATE Environment Variable Improvements
In-Reply-To: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D58D3327@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
References: <CAKUYOb2kdcoQR+Sr6LmXdVDZg6WGOkgGXc3-yJfh=zWrDOWLPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D58D3327@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
Message-ID: <CAKUYOb2j+rbz3pmukUMxU4M-Mdpe5PMNiHadwjCh0F=s9qSsoA@mail.gmail.com>

On 8 January 2014 15:55, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com> wrote:
> Done.
>
{snip}
>
> There now is a %STIME% which returns the time as hh_mm_ss.
>
Excellent. ISO 8601 date format makes me a happy camper; and STIME is
quite useful. (Underscores look odd; but then again HHMMSS can be
confused for YYMMDD or some other truncated date format).

> That should work now.  The Windows binaries will be updated in a couple of minutes.
>
> - Mark
>
They work excellently, though I only managed to try them just now.


Thank you very much.

Christian


-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
Contact information available upon request.


From phiber at phiber.com  Thu Jan 16 02:16:20 2014
From: phiber at phiber.com (Mark Abene)
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
Message-ID: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>

By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.

-Mark
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From gerry77 at mail.com  Thu Jan 16 08:01:00 2014
From: gerry77 at mail.com (G.)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>

On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:

> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.

Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
(V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)

HTH,
G.



From phiber at phiber.com  Thu Jan 16 12:20:31 2014
From: phiber at phiber.com (Mark Abene)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 09:20:31 -0800
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <CAPCE1iYp1-iBkA1NU1a7=sQYNq-KFsONrSwroG9Gc2JGb=uDPg@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks!  I'll give it a shot.

-Mark


On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 5:01 AM, G. <gerry77 at mail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:
>
>> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
>> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.
>
> Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
> (V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
> work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
> to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)
>
> HTH,
> G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Simh mailing list
> Simh at trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh


From simh at alderson.users.panix.com  Thu Jan 16 19:38:13 2014
From: simh at alderson.users.panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 19:38:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com> (message from G. on
 Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100)
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>

> From: G. <gerry77 at mail.com>
> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100

> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:

>> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
>> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.

> Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
> (V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
> work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
> to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)

Given that this question was raised in a SimH context, I have to point out that
SimH only emulates a KS-10 processor, which is limited to TOPS-20 v4.1, and
which does not support the DN20 interface (a PDP-11/40 [or /34?]) which does
DMA via the DTE20 into KL-10 memory.  Looking at the tape on Trailing Edge, it
specifies the DN20, so I think that this is a non-starter.

Someone please point out if I'm wrong about this.

                                                                Rich


From b4 at gewt.net  Thu Jan 16 19:39:33 2014
From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 19:39:33 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
 <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1401161939120.75793@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>

On Thu, 16 Jan 2014, Rich Alderson wrote:

>> From: G. <gerry77 at mail.com>
>> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100
>
>> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:
>
>>> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
>>> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.
>
>> Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
>> (V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
>> work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
>> to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)
>
> Given that this question was raised in a SimH context, I have to point out that
> SimH only emulates a KS-10 processor, which is limited to TOPS-20 v4.1, and
> which does not support the DN20 interface (a PDP-11/40 [or /34?]) which does
> DMA via the DTE20 into KL-10 memory.  Looking at the tape on Trailing Edge, it
> specifies the DN20, so I think that this is a non-starter.
>
> Someone please point out if I'm wrong about this.
>

Someone was implementing DMC/KMC emulation for SIMH, iirc.

>                                                                Rich
> _______________________________________________
> Simh mailing list
> Simh at trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
>
>

-- 
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects


From litt at ieee.org  Thu Jan 16 20:27:25 2014
From: litt at ieee.org (Timothe Litt)
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 20:27:25 -0500
Subject: [Simh] PSI for TOPS-20
In-Reply-To: <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>
References: <CAPCE1iaeYXC3TgyMJ=NXsbdwuKeUNb913AkYuOi11+C_QqCUUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <2kkfd9pjvk8k1kjp7ns4e708sd3ua6i09v@4ax.com>
 <20140117003813.D7869242CF@panix5.panix.com>
Message-ID: <52D886FD.9090802@ieee.org>

> Someone please point out if I'm wrong about this.
It's not that simple.  You are, and you aren't.

TOPS-10/20 PSI (X.25) required a DN20; the X.25 gateway software lived 
there.

The KS hardware could not connect directly to the X.25 network. The KDP 
could have done it, but no driver or gateway software was written.  The 
SimH KDP emulation does not support bit-stuffing.

The gateway just made the X.25 connection look like a DECnet circuit, 
albeit it an expensive one.    In the Phase IV DNA, X.25 is a data link 
layer parallel to ethernet and DDCMP.

The gateway in the DN20 was accessed by a standard DECnet logical link 
by the PSI utilities, usually from the local host.

A KS could get to the gateway using DECnet, modulo the routing 
restrictions/hacks of the OS version.

I'm not sure about the VAX implementation - I think the 10/20 PSI (the 
utiltiies, such as x29pad) could talk thru it.  I never tried it.  It 
should have worked.

The NML has entity definitions for X.25 circuits, and any DECnet Phase 
IV or greater NCP can mange one (whatever node it lives on), subject to 
the usual privs.

So yes, the KS can't physically connect to the X.25 network.  But it can 
use a gateway elsewhere.

And it can manage one.  Sometimes.  X.25 Circuits were introduced in 
Phase IV.  The NCP in TOPS-20 on the KS wouldn't have had the command 
tables.  The Phase-IV version did.

This communication may not represent my employer's views,
if any, on the matters discussed.

On 16-Jan-14 19:38, Rich Alderson wrote:
>> From: G. <gerry77 at mail.com>
>> Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 14:01:00 +0100
>> On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:16:20 -0800, Mark Abene wrote:
>>> By chance, does anyone have a tape image of PSI for TOPS-20 v7?  I want to
>>> get X.25 connectivity going.  Probably a long shot, but doesn't hurt to ask.
>> Both Trailing Edge and Bitsavers have BB-W661A-BM (V1.0 1983) and BB-W661B-BM
>> (V1.1 1984) tape images, but they are for TOPS-20 V5.1 so maybe they do not
>> work with V7. On the other hand, Autopatch tape 23 (V7 indeed) has references
>> to PSI V1.1 so you may just want to give it a try... :)
> Given that this question was raised in a SimH context, I have to point out that
> SimH only emulates a KS-10 processor, which is limited to TOPS-20 v4.1, and
> which does not support the DN20 interface (a PDP-11/40 [or /34?]) which does
> DMA via the DTE20 into KL-10 memory.  Looking at the tape on Trailing Edge, it
> specifies the DN20, so I think that this is a non-starter.
>
> Someone please point out if I'm wrong about this.
>
>                                                                  Rich
> _______________________________________________
> Simh mailing list
> Simh at trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh


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From captainkirk359 at gmail.com  Wed Jan 22 11:16:43 2014
From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove)
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 11:16:43 -0500
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87 baseline
 system disk with insufficient memory
Message-ID: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>

Hello:

I've noticed an odd issue. When booting the aforementioned baseline
RSX-11/M+ disk, with 256K of memory, RSX-11 doesn't have enough RAM to
work when it tries to run the startup script. This happens as the
system doesn't have enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space; so
RSX-11 gets stuck in an infinite loop repeating:
<TIME>  *** GEN    Checkpoint space allocation failure
Where <TIME> is the current time in HH:MM:SS format. The CPU is
working, as you can see the time field counting properly. However, the
simulator completely locks up otherwise; you can't Ctrl+E to the sim>
prompt, you can't Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Z the program within RSX-11 itself.
Trying to exit the SIMH simulator doesn't work. The only way to kill
it is via the task manager (on Windows).

I'm using the 14 day old Windows binary. Currently this is happening
on a Windows 7 Professional SP1 workstation at my university. I'll
have to check on my W7 Pro SP1 desktop at home, just to see if it is a
problem with this specific machine, or with the executable itself.


Regards,
Christian

-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
Contact information available upon request.


From Mark at infocomm.com  Wed Jan 22 11:30:37 2014
From: Mark at infocomm.com (Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm)
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 08:30:37 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87
 baseline system disk with insufficient memory
Message-ID: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6CA@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
> Hello:
> 
> I've noticed an odd issue. When booting the aforementioned baseline RSX-
> 11/M+ disk, with 256K of memory, RSX-11 doesn't have enough RAM to work
> when it tries to run the startup script. This happens as the system doesn't
> have enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space; so
> RSX-11 gets stuck in an infinite loop repeating:
> <TIME>  *** GEN    Checkpoint space allocation failure
> Where <TIME> is the current time in HH:MM:SS format. The CPU is working,
> as you can see the time field counting properly. However, the simulator
> completely locks up otherwise; you can't Ctrl+E to the sim> prompt, you can't
> Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Z the program within RSX-11 itself.
> Trying to exit the SIMH simulator doesn't work. The only way to kill it is via
> the task manager (on Windows).
> 
> I'm using the 14 day old Windows binary. Currently this is happening on a
> Windows 7 Professional SP1 workstation at my university. I'll have to check
> on my W7 Pro SP1 desktop at home, just to see if it is a problem with this
> specific machine, or with the executable itself.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Christian

Hi Christian,

Thanks for this report.  

This does sound odd.  

I can't speak to what to expect when you configure a simulator with insufficient resources for the operating system to run, but your observation that Ctrl-E doesn't provide a way back to the "sim>" prompt suggests something strange in the simulator itself.

Please create an issue at https://github.com/simh/simh/issues to report and track this problem.

I doubt it has anything to do with the particular windows system you are running on, so you don't have to run back home to test.  The configuration file you're running with would be useful.

Thanks.

- Mark



From bqt at softjar.se  Wed Jan 22 11:34:31 2014
From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 08:34:31 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87
 baseline system disk with insufficient memory
In-Reply-To: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <52DFF317.1060003@softjar.se>

On 2014-01-22 08:16, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
> Hello:
>
> I've noticed an odd issue. When booting the aforementioned baseline
> RSX-11/M+ disk, with 256K of memory, RSX-11 doesn't have enough RAM to
> work when it tries to run the startup script. This happens as the
> system doesn't have enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space; so
> RSX-11 gets stuck in an infinite loop repeating:
> <TIME>  *** GEN    Checkpoint space allocation failure
> Where <TIME> is the current time in HH:MM:SS format. The CPU is
> working, as you can see the time field counting properly. However, the
> simulator completely locks up otherwise; you can't Ctrl+E to the sim>
> prompt, you can't Ctrl+C or Ctrl+Z the program within RSX-11 itself.

Sounds like a problem in simh, yes.

But just to clarify one thing with RSX here. The problem is not about 
not having enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space. What the error 
means is that RSX do not have a checkpoint space.
Checkpoint space is the RSX term for disk space used to swap out running 
tasks to, in order to free memory.

But yes, the basic problem is that you have too little memory. The 
startup script will setup a checkpoint space for you, but you don't even 
make it that far... The basic tasks activated at startup is already 
requiring more memory than you have.

	Johnny



From captainkirk359 at gmail.com  Thu Jan 23 09:27:12 2014
From: captainkirk359 at gmail.com (Christian Gauger-Cosgrove)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 09:27:12 -0500
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87
 baseline system disk with insufficient memory
In-Reply-To: <52DFF317.1060003@softjar.se>
References: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <52DFF317.1060003@softjar.se>
Message-ID: <CAKUYOb1GWSp-ezybQDoYkOMMU4uz0pbAWx0zm=0Gy+8gndX65Q@mail.gmail.com>

On 22 January 2014 11:30, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com> wrote:
> Hi Christian,
>
> Thanks for this report.
>
> This does sound odd.
>
> I can't speak to what to expect when you configure a simulator with insufficient resources for the operating system to run, but your observation that Ctrl-E doesn't provide a way back to the "sim>" prompt suggests something strange in the simulator itself.
>
> Please create an issue at https://github.com/simh/simh/issues to report and track this problem.
>
> I doubt it has anything to do with the particular windows system you are running on, so you don't have to run back home to test.  The configuration file you're running with would be useful.
>
> Thanks.
>
> - Mark
Well, actually I didn't expect the RSX-11/S baseline system to require
more than 256KB of RAM, but I am apparently wrong. (I think it's
RSX-11/S that is used for the baseline, I'm not sure. Wholly new to
the world of RSX-11.) Trying it with 384KB of RAM worked fine (it
didn't crash kill the sim). And the bug is reproducible on my home W7
system as well.

As a further test; I attempted to bootstrap the baseline system on a
256KB system, with the system console directed to a telnet port as
opposed to running straight from the SIMH executable. While the RSX-11
baseline still dies, the simulator itself doesn't. (I.e. I can send a
Ctrl+E and the simulator does halt to the sim> prompt.)


I'll open a proper issue/trouble ticket on the GitHub shortly.



On 22 January 2014 11:34, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
> Sounds like a problem in simh, yes.
>
> But just to clarify one thing with RSX here. The problem is not about not
> having enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space. What the error means is
> that RSX do not have a checkpoint space.
> Checkpoint space is the RSX term for disk space used to swap out running
> tasks to, in order to free memory.
>
> But yes, the basic problem is that you have too little memory. The startup
> script will setup a checkpoint space for you, but you don't even make it
> that far... The basic tasks activated at startup is already requiring more
> memory than you have.
>
>         Johnny
I'm brand new to the RSX-11 game so I didn't know that. As I mentioned
in my reply to Mark, I think the baseline install system is RSX-11/S,
which I thought had very small memory requirements. Plus it seems a
bit of a troll on the part of the RSX-11 developers, it won't run on
an 18-bit system, but will run a 22-bit system with just 128KB more
RAM; compare to RSTS/E 10.1 which works fine on a 256KB system.


In any case, this appears to be a problem with SIMH itself, not so
much with RSX-11 (even if it is a misconfiguration issue that causes
RSX-11 to crash and show the bug).


Regards,
Christian

-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0


From bqt at softjar.se  Thu Jan 23 10:19:06 2014
From: bqt at softjar.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 07:19:06 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Simulator lockup when booting RSX-11/M+ V4.6 BL87
 baseline system disk with insufficient memory
In-Reply-To: <CAKUYOb1GWSp-ezybQDoYkOMMU4uz0pbAWx0zm=0Gy+8gndX65Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAKUYOb048_n+620wxp19yLPBED3jx2EyBv5OYgx3f4rAeK7V1Q@mail.gmail.com>	<52DFF317.1060003@softjar.se>
 <CAKUYOb1GWSp-ezybQDoYkOMMU4uz0pbAWx0zm=0Gy+8gndX65Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <52E132EA.5080808@softjar.se>

On 2014-01-23 06:27, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:
> On 22 January 2014 11:30, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com> wrote:
>> Hi Christian,
>>
>> Thanks for this report.
>>
>> This does sound odd.
>>
>> I can't speak to what to expect when you configure a simulator with insufficient resources for the operating system to run, but your observation that Ctrl-E doesn't provide a way back to the "sim>" prompt suggests something strange in the simulator itself.
>>
>> Please create an issue at https://github.com/simh/simh/issues to report and track this problem.
>>
>> I doubt it has anything to do with the particular windows system you are running on, so you don't have to run back home to test.  The configuration file you're running with would be useful.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> - Mark
> Well, actually I didn't expect the RSX-11/S baseline system to require
> more than 256KB of RAM, but I am apparently wrong. (I think it's
> RSX-11/S that is used for the baseline, I'm not sure. Wholly new to
> the world of RSX-11.) Trying it with 384KB of RAM worked fine (it
> didn't crash kill the sim). And the bug is reproducible on my home W7
> system as well.
>
> As a further test; I attempted to bootstrap the baseline system on a
> 256KB system, with the system console directed to a telnet port as
> opposed to running straight from the SIMH executable. While the RSX-11
> baseline still dies, the simulator itself doesn't. (I.e. I can send a
> Ctrl+E and the simulator does halt to the sim> prompt.)

As far as I could see in your initial post, you were booting 
RSX-11M-PLUS, not -11S/M.

There is a huge difference between these systems. -11M will boot fine in 
much less memory, and -11S does not even come with a bootable baseline, 
since you have to tailor it on another host system.

	Johnny

>
>
> I'll open a proper issue/trouble ticket on the GitHub shortly.
>
>
>
> On 22 January 2014 11:34, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>> Sounds like a problem in simh, yes.
>>
>> But just to clarify one thing with RSX here. The problem is not about not
>> having enough memory to allocate a checkpoint space. What the error means is
>> that RSX do not have a checkpoint space.
>> Checkpoint space is the RSX term for disk space used to swap out running
>> tasks to, in order to free memory.
>>
>> But yes, the basic problem is that you have too little memory. The startup
>> script will setup a checkpoint space for you, but you don't even make it
>> that far... The basic tasks activated at startup is already requiring more
>> memory than you have.
>>
>>          Johnny
> I'm brand new to the RSX-11 game so I didn't know that. As I mentioned
> in my reply to Mark, I think the baseline install system is RSX-11/S,
> which I thought had very small memory requirements. Plus it seems a
> bit of a troll on the part of the RSX-11 developers, it won't run on
> an 18-bit system, but will run a 22-bit system with just 128KB more
> RAM; compare to RSTS/E 10.1 which works fine on a 256KB system.
>
>
> In any case, this appears to be a problem with SIMH itself, not so
> much with RSX-11 (even if it is a misconfiguration issue that causes
> RSX-11 to crash and show the bug).
>
>
> Regards,
> Christian
>



From priyachinc at gmail.com  Fri Jan 24 06:39:37 2014
From: priyachinc at gmail.com (Priya Chincholikar)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 17:09:37 +0530
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
Message-ID: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a
way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.

*sim> show cpu*
*CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT*
*        64MB, HALT to console*
*sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS*
*sim> show cpu*
*CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT*
*        64MB, HALT to console*

Host OS used is Linux. fc18.

Thanks,
Priya
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From Mark at infocomm.com  Fri Jan 24 08:25:30 2014
From: Mark at infocomm.com (Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 05:25:30 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
In-Reply-To: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>

Hi Priya,

This is one of those "it works for me" cases.  Idling works fine for a VMS guest on my fc18 x86 test system.

What is the output of "SHOW VERSION" done at the "sim>" prompt?
What does your configuration file look like?


-          Mark

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Priya Chincholikar
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:40 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi,

The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.

sim> show cpu
CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console
sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS
sim> show cpu
CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console

Host OS used is Linux. fc18.

Thanks,
Priya


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From david.hittner at ngc.com  Fri Jan 24 15:43:14 2014
From: david.hittner at ngc.com (Hittner, David T (IS))
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 20:43:14 +0000
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
In-Reply-To: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
References: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
 <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
Message-ID: <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>

And what version of VMS are you running? Different versions of VMS have different idle characteristics..

Dave

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 8:26 AM
To: Priya Chincholikar; simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi Priya,

This is one of those "it works for me" cases.  Idling works fine for a VMS guest on my fc18 x86 test system.

What is the output of "SHOW VERSION" done at the "sim>" prompt?
What does your configuration file look like?


-          Mark

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com> [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Priya Chincholikar
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:40 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi,

The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.

sim> show cpu
CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console
sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS
sim> show cpu
CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console

Host OS used is Linux. fc18.

Thanks,
Priya


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From oboguev at yahoo.com  Fri Jan 24 15:52:14 2014
From: oboguev at yahoo.com (Sergey Oboguev)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 12:52:14 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
In-Reply-To: <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>
References: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
 <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
 <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>
Message-ID: <1390596734.51656.YahooMailNeo@web184303.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>

Could it perhaps be a canonical case of Linux build with low CONFIG_HZ such as 100 or around?



________________________________
 From: "Hittner, David T (IS)" <david.hittner at ngc.com>
To: Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com>; Priya Chincholikar <priyachinc at gmail.com>; "simh at trailing-edge.com" <simh at trailing-edge.com> 
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 12:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
 


 
And what version of VMS are you running? Different versions of VMS have different idle characteristics..
 
Dave
 
From:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 8:26 AM
To: Priya Chincholikar; simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
 
Hi Priya,
 
This is one of those “it works for me” cases.  Idling works fine for a VMS guest on my fc18 x86 test system.
 
What is the output of “SHOW VERSION” done at the “sim>” prompt?
What does your configuration file look like?
 
-          Mark
 
From:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Priya Chincholikar
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:40 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
 
Hi,
 
The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.
 
sim> show cpu
CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console
sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS
sim> show cpu
CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console
 
Host OS used is Linux. fc18. 
 
Thanks,
Priya 
 
 
_______________________________________________
Simh mailing list
Simh at trailing-edge.com
http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
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From Mark at infocomm.com  Fri Jan 24 16:11:39 2014
From: Mark at infocomm.com (Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm)
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 13:11:39 -0800
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage
In-Reply-To: <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>
References: <CABBrNDcxiDVsOU6Kg9L2aWv=AUyc=PagStK0Svkz9UxEeVzV5A@mail.gmail.com>
 <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C6F7@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>
 <9C9FDA2BCCFB5E4098DEB87AC47B94503E295FBB@XMBVAG73.northgrum.com>
Message-ID: <0CC6789C1C831B4C8CCFF49D45D7010F0127D608C700@REDROOF2.alohasunset.com>

True, but the current idling logic in the VAX simulators should detect and be well behaved under all available versions of VMS as well as when sitting idle at the console boot rom prompt (>>>).

Sergey suggest that the problem may be related to too large a host OS clock tick.  This turns out not to be the case either.

Priya sent me the following SHOW VERSION output:

MicroVAX 3900 simulator V4.0-0 Beta
        Simulator Framework Capabilities:
                64b data
                64b addresses
                Ethernet support
                Idle/Throttling support is available
                Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) support
                RAW disk and CD/DVD ROM support
                Asynchronous I/O support
        Host Platform:
                Compiler: GCC 4.7.2 20121109 (Red Hat 4.7.2-8)
                Simulator Compiled: Nov  5 2013 at 15:19:27
                Memory Access: Little Endian
                Memory Pointer Size: 32 bits
                Large File (>2GB) support
                OS clock tick size: 2ms
                OS: Linux localhost.localdomain 3.6.10-4.fc18.i686.PAE #1 SMP Tue Dec 11 18:15:08 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

        git commit id: 32b8f063


The OS clock tick size of 2 is the same as on my FC18 test system.

I also received a copy of the config file that is being used.

I responded with the following:

Your vax.ini file doesn't have a "SET CPU IDLE" command.  Once that command has been issued, idle detection may take up to 20 seconds before the running simulator's clock calibration will allow idling.  Normally this 20 seconds would happen during the boot of the simulated system and not be noticed.  Clearly idling will ONLY be noticed on the host system when the guest system is actually idling.  What operating system (and version) is running on the guest?  How do you know the guest system is actually idle?

We'll see what comes back....


-          Mark

From: Hittner, David T (IS) [mailto:david.hittner at ngc.com]
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 12:43 PM
To: Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm; Priya Chincholikar; simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: RE: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

And what version of VMS are you running? Different versions of VMS have different idle characteristics..

Dave

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com> [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 8:26 AM
To: Priya Chincholikar; simh at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi Priya,

This is one of those "it works for me" cases.  Idling works fine for a VMS guest on my fc18 x86 test system.

What is the output of "SHOW VERSION" done at the "sim>" prompt?
What does your configuration file look like?


-          Mark

From: simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com> [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Priya Chincholikar
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:40 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com<mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: [Simh] Reduce CPU usage

Hi,

The cpu usage while running the emulator is shown as 97% to 99%. Is there a way to reduce this?
And I tried setting the cpu idle but no use. CPU utilization is still high.

sim> show cpu
CPU     idle disabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console
sim> SET CPU IDLE=VMS
sim> show cpu
CPU     idle=VMS, idle enabled, model=VAXServer 3900 (KA655), NOAUTOBOOT
        64MB, HALT to console

Host OS used is Linux. fc18.

Thanks,
Priya


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From geneirwin at comcast.net  Mon Jan 27 14:51:06 2014
From: geneirwin at comcast.net (Gene Irwin)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 11:51:06 -0800
Subject: [Simh] PDP11 simulator and .TAP files from bitsavers
Message-ID: <52E6B8AA.70200@comcast.net>

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the mailing list, forgive me if this has been asked.

I'm using the 4.0 release of simh and I've tried everything I can think 
of to make the tape images from bitsavers work.

There are 5 magtape images in the RSTS 7 folder and I have tried in vain 
to mount them using every option available.

I can not get the sysgen image to boot.  So I built from the RL01 images 
in the software kits area of the simh site.

With RSTS running I have tried to mount the rsx distribution tape 
(missing from the RL01 images on the kits page) and
have yet to successfully mount any magtape images with the pdp11 simulator.

I have recopied the image repeatedly and just can't get it to mount 
properly either to boot or read in RSTS.

Any ideas?


From robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com  Mon Jan 27 16:27:41 2014
From: robert.jarratt at ntlworld.com (Jarratt RMA)
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 21:27:41 +0000
Subject: [Simh] PDP11 simulator and .TAP files from bitsavers
In-Reply-To: <52E6B8AA.70200@comcast.net>
References: <52E6B8AA.70200@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <CAArkeuiW9+0+f8dObYRhn2BT+GXk0F7Kzc2TBmbqUrYy0bx+_A@mail.gmail.com>

I can't help with the problem, but it might help if you could post the
commands you used in SIMH and the commands you used in RSTS. That might
help others to help.

Regards

Rob


On 27 January 2014 19:51, Gene Irwin <geneirwin at comcast.net> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm new to the mailing list, forgive me if this has been asked.
>
> I'm using the 4.0 release of simh and I've tried everything I can think of
> to make the tape images from bitsavers work.
>
> There are 5 magtape images in the RSTS 7 folder and I have tried in vain
> to mount them using every option available.
>
> I can not get the sysgen image to boot.  So I built from the RL01 images
> in the software kits area of the simh site.
>
> With RSTS running I have tried to mount the rsx distribution tape (missing
> from the RL01 images on the kits page) and
> have yet to successfully mount any magtape images with the pdp11 simulator.
>
> I have recopied the image repeatedly and just can't get it to mount
> properly either to boot or read in RSTS.
>
> Any ideas?
> _______________________________________________
> Simh mailing list
> Simh at trailing-edge.com
> http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh
>
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