[Simh] EXT :Re: alpha emulator

[Hittner, David T (IS)]

To answer the OP:
The SIMH VAX simulator will correctly run OpenVMS, as will the commercial and free simulators noted.
The commercial Alpha products support OpenVMS and TRU64 Unix.
I don’t know if any commercial Alpha emulators support Windows/Alpha (retired), Red Hat Linux/Alpha (retired), or xBSD/Alpha Unix (2 still support Alpha).

I am currently slowly developing the SIMH Alpha emulator in my [very] spare time.
Bob Supnik created the original Alpha EV56 processor simulation, but it included no other supporting hardware.
I have the SIMH Alpha to the point where it starts to run the POST diagnostics, but it still needs a lot of the hardware emulation written before it can even get up to the SRM chevrons (>>>), after which it could potentially boot an OS.
The major change for SIMH is the incorporation of industry-standard components (PCI, ISA, SCSI, SOC), which have not been previously developed. SIMH has already incorporated the Ethernet framework.

The SIMH Alpha [Miata(=Personal Work Station 500au)] simulator requires :
               Alpha EV56 chip (complete)
               Motherboard + PCI hose (Alpha-specific Pyxis chip – in work)
               PCI framework (nearing completion)
ISA framework (limping)
SCSI framework (not started)
Ethernet framework (complete)
               PCI ISA bridge (just enough to pass through to SOC)
               PCI Ethernet card (just enough to register framework)
PCI SCSI card (just enough to register framework)
PC System-On-Chip (SOC) components:
Clock (in-work)
2 Serial Ports (not started)
Parallel port (optional)
2 IDE ports (optional)
2 Floppy ports (optional)
Keyboard/Mouse ports (optional)
ESS Sound (optional)
PCI bridge (optional)
Video card (optional – not technically required for any OS - even Windows/Alpha can run serial-based)

I would be happy to let anyone help out with the SIMH Alpha project. Contact me and Mark Pizzolato if you’d like to help with development.
I’ve recently found that the QEMU project has already worked out the logic for a many of the industry-standard hardware simulations in C, which could help to speed up development.

David Hittner

From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Jason Stevens
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2016 4:17 AM
To: Jeremy Begg
Cc: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] alpha emulator

Oh wow, I wondered what happened.. Es40 was too promising to just evaporate. Thanks for the update
On 02 October 2016 3:25:57 PM GMT+08:00, Jeremy Begg <jeremy at vsm.com.au<mailto:jeremy at vsm.com.au>> wrote:

Hi,

Es40 was another
http://www.es40.org/Homepage

Discontinued in 2009.

On 02 October 2016 3:13:15 PM GMT+08:00, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net<mailto:b4 at gewt.net>> wrote:

There is also alphavm-free unless that's just a different name

AlphaVM-Free is discontinued, according to their web site,

FYI the creator of the ES40 project went on to write the Avanti/FreeAXP
emulator mentioned earlier.  He now works for VMS Software Inc, working
on the next release of OpenVMS.  Last week I saw him give a very interesting
presentation comparing the VAX, Alpha, Itanium and x86 architectures.

Regards,

 Jeremy Begg


On Oct 1, 2016, at 20:54, Jeremy Begg < jeremy at vsm.com.au<mailto:jeremy at vsm.com.au>
<mailto:jeremy at vsm.com.au> > wrote:



Hi Bill



 Ok since I have been told the alpha simh emulator isn't booting yet. I


guess I have two questions:





o does anyone know when it should be complete or what's going on? Maybe
I


should check the main page or something.



I suspect there is no activity.



o And two, is there any emulators that can be used until then?
Something
to


run openVMS on.



There are at least three commercial Alpha emulators, and two of those
have
free versions which run under Windows:

* Charon-AXP
* FreeAXP

They both restrict the emulated system RAM and disk configuration but
are
enough to run OpenVMS.  (The paid-for versions are somewhat more
realistic
in the configuration of the emulated hardware.)

The third one is "vtAlpha" made by AVTware.  I don't think they have a
free
version.  Unlike the other two, vtAlpha does not require a full Windows
or
Linix host operating system; instead, it has basic Linux kernel which
boots
the x86-84 CPU and starts the emulator.

Regards,

      Jeremy Begg

+

________________________________

+
|            VSM Software Services Pty. Ltd.              |
|                  http://www.vsm.com.au/ <http://www.vsm.com.au/>
|
|

________________________________

|
| P.O.Box 402, Walkerville, |  E-Mail:   jeremy at vsm.com.au<mailto:jeremy at vsm.com.au>
<mailto:jeremy at vsm.com.au>  |
| South Australia 5081      |   Phone:  +61 8 8221 5188   |
|---------------------------|  Mobile:  0414 422 947      |
|  A.C.N. 068 409 156       |     FAX:  +61 8 8221 7199   |
+

________________________________

+

________________________________

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



________________________________



________________________________

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



--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/pipermail/simh/attachments/20161002/f482237a/attachment-0001.html>