[Simh] Standalone boot on vax8600?

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2014-07-11 02:41, Henry Bent wrote:
> I got a console RL02 image from Quasijarus - the only one I could find
> easily - but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it.  All I get is
> this:
>
> --
> sim> boot cs /r5:8
> Loading boot code from vmb.exe
>
>
>
> Please remove the volume "" from the console device.
>
> Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready:
> --

That is expected. If you actually do this, you are expected to actually 
have the *system* on an RL02, that you will be booting from. As the 
normal console pack have all the diagnostics, boot images, microcode, 
and so on, there is no other system on that pack.
This means that you are expected to replace the console pack at this 
point with another RL02 which contains some kind of a system.
For normal VMS installations, this is how you initially install VMS. The 
second RL02 will contain STABACKIT, which is the standalone backup 
system. That is in turn used to restore from tapes to some actual other 
drive you have on the system, thus creating a bootable system disk.

Unless you really are installing VMS from scratch, this is probably not 
something you want to do, or is what you thought you were doing.

You probably want to boot from some actual disk you have, such as an RA 
disk attached to the machine. See my other mail about boot command files 
for the 86x0 machines.

Oh, and I have never used Quasijaurus, so for that specific topic I 
can't offer any help.

So you have a real physical 86x0 machine? Nice! Ping me off list, if you 
want to talk some more about it.

	Johnny

>
> But that's neither here nor there at this point.  The 8600 doesn't seem
> to be able to run any standalone utilities - they all print one
> character to the console and then stop.  For example, "copy" and "format":
>
> sim> load -o copy 0
> sim> run 2
> F
>
> sim> load -o format 0
> sim> run 2
> D
>
> While on any other vax simulator, I get:
>
> sim> load -o copy 0
> sim> run 2
> From:
>
> sim> load -o format 0
> sim> run 2
> Disk format/check utility
>
> Enable debugging (0=none, 1=bse, 2=ecc, 3=bse+ecc)?
>
>
> I haven't done any real testing of the qbus vax sims, I just verified
> that they could load and run standalone utilities.
>
> -Henry
>
>
>
>
> On 10 July 2014 19:08, Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm <Mark at infocomm.com
> <mailto:Mark at infocomm.com>> wrote:
>
>     On Thursday, July 10, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
>      > On Thu, 10 Jul 2014, Henry Bent wrote:
>      >
>      > > Well, that at least did something different.
>      > >
>      > > sim> boot rq0 /r5:8
>      > > Loading boot code from vmb.exe
>      > > %BOOT-F-Unexpected Exceptio
>      > >
>      > > The 8600 simulator always seems to cut off the last character
>     of its
>      > > messages, I wonder if that's in any way related to the other
>     console
>      > > problems.
>      > >
>      >
>      > 780, 750, and 730 have the same issue...along with not actually
>     booting from
>      > the console RL, floppy, et al.
>
>     The last character output in a message just prior to executing a
>     HALT instruction is not surprising since the simulator implements a
>     delay (as a number of instructions executed) from when the data is
>     put in the output register prior to generating the completion
>     interrupt/status.  The halt instruction gets executed before the
>     delay number of instructions have completed.  Even if that was
>     'fixed', nothing operational would change.  The reason the message
>     has been generated will still exist.
>
>     As for direct support for booting an OS from the console media, the
>     8600 supports BOOT CS /R5:xx to boot from the console RL02.  Other
>     than that, VMB.EXE is actually performing the boot operation and I
>     think that when I checked VMB didn't know how to boot from console
>     floppies on a 780, but it can boot from the console TU58 on both the
>     730 and 750 (BOOT TD /R5:xx).
>
>      > > I tried the standalone boot on the other VAX sims (microvax 1, 2,
>      > > 3900, and
>      > > rtvax1000) and they are all able to load the booter and take
>     console
>      > > input (I didn't actually try booting).  This seems to point to
>     there
>      > > being a problem with the console on the 8600.  Any tips for where I
>      > > should look to narrow down where the problem might be?
>
>     What media have you tested with on the other (qbus) VAX simulators?
>
>     - Mark
>
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>
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-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol