[Simh] installing VMS 1.5

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2016-02-15 15:54, William Pechter wrote:
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 7
>> Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 15:14:52 +0100
>> From: Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se>
>> To: Zachary Kline <zkline at speedpost.net>
>> Cc: Simh <simh at trailing-edge.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Simh] Console floppy and VAX 780
>> Message-ID: <56C1DD5C.5040501 at softjar.se>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>>
>> First let me point out that I have not looked at that installation
>> image, so I have no idea what it is.
>>
>> On 2016-02-15 14:38, Zachary Kline wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I’m trying to boot
>>> http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/DEC/vax/vms/BB-D782B-BE__VMS_V1.5_1600.zip,
>>> mostly for interest’s sake. I presume this is an installation tape of
>>> some sort.
>>> I’ve tried on the VaxSserver 3900 simulator, but always seem to get a
>>> “DevOffline,” message for Mua0:, the magnetic tape reader.
>>> I was wondering if I might have better luck with the VAX 11/780. I
>>> don’t actually have real hardware of any kind. The reason I was
>>> asking about console floppies is that, as far as I know, I can’t
>>> directly boot from tape on the 780, at least not with the SIMH
>>> “boot,” command.
>>> If this is something other than an installation tape, of course, the
>>> whole process isn’t worth the trouble :)
>>>
>>> Thanks for any help,
>> Well, VMS V1 have no idea about a VAX 3900, will probably not work at
>> all. You need "hardware" that the OS knows about, which for VMS v1 is
>> probably only the VAX-11/780.
>>
>> Second, it is correct that the old VAXen cannot boot from tape. However,
>> the standard way of installing was to boot the standalone backup system
>> on the VAX, and then restore the VMS system from the tape. Now, if that
>> was true already in V1 I don't know. Also, exactly how you get the
>> standalone backup system running on an emulated 11/780 is also unclear
>> to me here. You could try booting a newer VMS, and just restore the V1
>> tape to a scratch disk, and then try and boot that disk.
>>
>>     Johnny
>>
>>> Zack.
>>>> On Feb 14, 2016, at 11:25 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure I understand the question. Get what working?
>>>> Do you have a real 11/780? Because the simh VAX-11/780 do not use
>>>> the floppies, as it don't actually emulate the PDP-11 that is used
>>>> in the FE.
>>>>
>>>>     Johnny
>
>
> Having installed 2.x back in the day -- IIRC you would need to get a VMS
> machine running with DSC (disk save and compress)
> running on it and use that to restore the system.   It might be possible
> to build bootable DSC on an RL pack
> on a different VAX (like an emulated 11/750) and then use that to
> restore the 1.5.
>
> Actually, I've never seen 1.5 and when I installed v2 back in '81 it
> came with an immediate update tape to v2.2.
>
> V1.5 probably ran heavily in compatibility mode to support the old
> utilities from RSX. (I think flx, sye, dsc were all
> pdp11 compatibility mode back then).
>
>
>
> I think VMS 2.x or 3.x would work with an 11/750 and the 11/750 would
> load DSC from the console tu58 (or disk drive).
>
> Anyone know if you could create standalone DSC on an 11/750 RL02?

Oh wow! I didn't know that VMS used to use DSC to install. I guess it 
makes sense, thinking about it. But DSC had various issues, and was 
dropped from RSX in the mid 80s.

	Johnny