[Simh] Booting the vax750 simulator.

Mark Pizzolato - Info Comm Mark at infocomm.com
Sun Jun 21 12:22:30 EDT 2015


Hi there Mattis,

Well, what you’re asking for (running model specific diagnostics) has been out of scope for all of the simh VAX simulators.  The scope has been to be able to run operating system and application software that ran on these systems.  If you had source code for the diagnostic you’re trying to run maybe some understanding of why it fails on both the real hardware and what might be needed in the simulator to support it would be possible….

As for Ultrix 4.0 on the VAX750 simulator, well I haven’t explored the documentation, but it might be possible that by the time Ultrix 4.0 came along, it never got tested on the older hardware.  Does this disk image boot using the VAX780 and VAX8600 simulators?


-        Mark

From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Mattis Lind
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2015 1:10 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] Booting the vax750 simulator.



2015-06-19 16:33 GMT+02:00 Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se<mailto:bqt at softjar.se>>:
I would suggest you start off by creating the system using a simulated uVAX II, as that can boot from tape. Once you have the system running. move the disk over to an emulated 11/750, and continue playing from there.


I did as Johnny recommended and then I got VMS 6.1 working on the vax750 simulator. Getting Ultrix 4.0 to work seems to be harder. I made a kernel config with just the uda and dz drivers. Exactly the same kernel boots just fine in the microvax2 simulator, but it fails on me in the vax750 simulator.  Anyone got Ultrix 4.0 working on the vax750 simulator?

Since another of the reasons for using the vax750 simulator is to understand how the diagnostics work (since the Cache/TB fails on the real machine. Either there is areal fault or possibly some kind of incompatibility between the board set I have and the diagnostic).

It would be very useful if they could run in the simulator as well. Anyone succeeded in running the diagnostics in the vax750 simulator?

sim> boot rq0
Loading boot code from vmb.exe

Ultrixboot - V4.0  Sat Mar 31 04:11:56 EST 1990

Loading (a)vmunix ...

Sizes:
text = 664356
data = 113152
bss  = 342256
Starting at 0x2b4d

ULTRIX V4.0 (Rev. 161) System #2: Wed May 19 13:29:37 GMT+0100 1976
real mem  = 8388608
avail mem = 5818368
using 204 buffers containing 838656 bytes of memory
VAX 11/750, hardware level = 0x9c, microcode level = 99
mcr0 (MS750) at address 0xf20000
mba0 at address 0xf28000
0 mba's not configured
mba0 at address 0xf2a000
0 mba's not configured
uba0 at address 0xf30000
uda0 at uba0
uq0 at uda0 csr 172150 vec 774, ipl 15
dz0 at uba0 csr 160100 vec 300, ipl 15

machine check 2: non-existant reference error
          sumpar            = 2
          va        = 80001890
          errpc    = 0
          mdr     = 0
          smr      = 0
          rdtimo = 0
          tbgpar  = 0
          cacherr            = 0
          buserr  = 140008
          mcesr  = 0
          pc        = 800991c1
          psl       = 4150008

          mcsr    = 140000


cpu 1 panic: mchk


locks held by cpu 1


print locks held by non-active processes
done



***************************
cpu 1 register dump
sp       = 800017d4     ap        = 80001850     fp         = 80001830
pc       = 80084a88     ksp      = 7ffffe88       usp      = 7fffc800
isp      = 80001780     p0pr     = 80bd8c00     p0lr     = 00000000
p1br   = 803d8e00     p1lr     = 001fffe4       sbr       = 000bde00
slr      = 00008d9a     pcbb    = 00111a00     scbb     = 00000600
ipl      = 0000001f     astlvl   = 00000004     sisr      = 00000000
iccs    = 00000041

interrupt stack:
80001780: 800aa989 800017ac        00000001        8010190c
80001790: 801018d8 80101998        800b44ba        00000080
800017a0: 00000178 00000020        00000000        20000000
800017b0: 80001818 800017d4        8004a0e2        00000003
800017c0: 800b44b5 00000001        800017e4        00000002
800017d0: 00000000 00000000 *     2fff0000          80001850 ap
800017e0: 80001830 fp        80084a88 pc   00000000 r0    0000001f r1
800017f0: 00000001 r2        8000197c r3    00000026 r4    00000000 r5

kernel stack:
7ffffe88: 00000000   2fc00000         7ffffee0           7ffffec4
7ffffe98: 80009bad   00000000        80189f54         00000000
7ffffea8: 00000000   00000000        80189f54         00000003
7ffffeb8: 80189f54   00000014        800edd18        00000000
7ffffec8: 2c000000   7fffff14           7ffffeec           80076967
7ffffed8: 80e0509c   800925d4        00000001        80189f54
7ffffee8: 00000000   00000000        2f800000         7fffff48
7ffffef8: 7fffff30      80092914        00000000        801285d8
7fffff08: 00000000   800bdd48        80e05000        00000003
7fffff18: 800925d4   00001701        80e0509c        00000000
7fffff28: 00000000   80e02400        00000000        28000000
7fffff38: 7fffff6c      7fffff58           80092746        00000006
7fffff48: 00000003   00001701        800e7cc8         00000000
7fffff58: 00000000   20000000        7fffff94           7fffff78
7fffff68: 8003d454   00000001        00001701        800e7cc8
7fffff78: 00000000   2c000000        7fffffb8           7fffff9c
7fffff88: 8003cde3    007ff800         00000006        00000000
7fffff98: 800a8a58    00000000        2c000000        7ffffff8
7fffffa8: 7fffffcc       8003c49d        007ff800         00000006
7fffffb8: 00000000   00000000        00000000        800e9cc0
7fffffc8: 00000000   00000000        2fc00000         00000000
7fffffd8: 00000000   80003042        00000000        00000000
7fffffe8: 00000000   00000000        007ff800         00000000
7ffffff8: 00000001    0000089b
dump area improper




        Johnny


On 2015-06-19 16:14, Mattis Lind wrote:
Hello!

I am in the process to revive an VAX-11/750 machine but since I have no
tape (nor install tapes) drive my idea was to  create an image which I
could transfer to a SCSI disk and then use a MSCP SCSI controller to
boot the machine.

I thought it would be a good idea to use the SimH vax750 simulator to do
this work. But I encounter problem. Many of these problems are probably
due to the fact I am not very familiar with SimH. Although I think I
read though several documents and studied the source code.

The booting process of the SimH vax750 simulator seems to differ from
the real VAX-11/750. On the real thing when I insert console media and
boot it it will read and I get a BOOT58> prompt. This doesn't happen at
all on the simulator. Instead it seems that it preloads vmb.exe and then
execute it.

The images I have been using was found on
http://iamvirtual.ca/VAX11/VAX-11-software.html

All tests below is run using SimH from github compiled on MACOS.
Although I have also tested to compile it on Linux with the same result.

This is what happen on the simulator:

sim> boot td0
Loading boot code from vmb.exe



Please remove the volume "CONSOLE" from the console device.

Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES

Resuming load operation on volume "CONSOLE", please stand by . . .


1 BRK AT 00001C50
00001C50/CF00FB01

It seems some kind of command line is active since I get this output
when I press some random keys:


EH?
EEE
00000EEE /8AAF9552


--------

Booting a standalone backup works OK if I don't follow the instructions
to replace the console media the first time.


sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-CT97A-BE.TAP
TD: writing buffer to file
TD: buffering file in memory
sim> boot td0
Loading boot code from vmb.exe



Please remove the volume "SYSTEM_1" from the console device.

Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES

Resuming load operation on volume "SYSTEM_1", please stand by . . .


Please remove the volume "SYSTEM_1" from the console device.

Insert the next standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready:
Simulation stopped, PC: 000083D8 (MFPR #20,R0)
sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-CT98A-BE.TAP
TD: writing buffer to file
TD: buffering file in memory
sim> cont
YES

Resuming load operation on volume "SYSTEM_2", please stand by . . .



    VAX/VMS Version V4.0 15-SEP-1984 22:29


Please remove the volume "SYSTEM_2" from the console device.

Insert the standalone application volume and enter "YES" when ready:
Simulation stopped, PC: 80008B1F (BRB 80008B1F)
sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-CT99A-BE.TAP
TD: writing buffer to file
TD: buffering file in memory
sim> cont
YES

Resuming load operation on volume "BACKUP", please stand by . . .


%BACKUP-I-IDENT, Stand-alone BACKUP V4.0; the date is 17-JUN-1984
22:40:44.48
$

---------

Then trying to run various diagnostics images that are supposed to be
standalone and do read on the real thing but gives the following result:

sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-S198Q-DE.TAP
TD: writing buffer to file
TD: buffering file in memory
sim> boot td0
Loading boot code from vmb.exe



Please remove the volume "VMS Exchange" from the console device.

Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES

Resuming load operation on volume "VMS Exchange", please stand by . . .

ECKAL -- VAX 11/750 Cache/TB Diagnostic
HALT instruction, PC: 00002608 (MTPR #F,#26)
sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-S199T-DE.TAP
TD: writing buffer to file
TD: buffering file in memory
sim> boot td0
Loading boot code from vmb.exe



Please remove the volume "VMS Exchange" from the console device.

Insert the first standalone system volume and enter "YES" when ready: YES

Resuming load operation on volume "VMS Exchange", please stand by . . .

%BOOT-F-Unable to locate BOOT file
HALT instruction, PC: 000004C7 (BLBS 549,4C6)
sim> attach td0 /Users/mattis_lind/Downloads/BE-S200I-DE.TAP
TD: writing buffer to file
TD: buffering file in memory
sim> boot td0
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: YES

Resuming load operation on volume "", please stand by . . .

%BOOT-F-Unable to locate BOOT file
HALT instruction, PC: 000004C7 (BLBS 549,4C6)
sim>

As you can see the Cache/TB diagnostic do read in and seem to execute
but fails. The others doesn't even seems to boot correctly.  When tested
on the real hardware all these start (although the Cache/TB fail, alas
not at the same location)

Maybe the best idea is to dump out the real BOOT PROMs from the actual
machine an load those into memory and start those? I haven't been able
to test this since the machine 100 km away.


I did successfully boot a Ultrix-4.0 tap file from bitsavers in the vax
andra microvax2 simulator. But how can I do that on the vax750
simulator? Doing "boot tq0" give "Command not allowed". Although help
file indicate it is a valid command!?

Any help appreciated!

/Mattis


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--
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se<mailto:bqt at softjar.se>             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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