[Simh] NetBSD 5.1 on MicoVAX 3900 boot error

[Mark Pizzolato]

On Tuesday, April 18, 2017 at 8:57 AM, Peter Conrad Cumminsky wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Apr 2017, Mark Pizzolato wrote:
> 
> > On Monday, April 17, 2017 at 10:28 AM, petercpm at sdf.org wrote:
> >> I'm getting a Segv error on boot of NetBSD 5.1 on the VAX emulator of
> SIMH v
> >> 4.0 Beta. Install went fine w/o any problems. I'm attaching the session file
> and
> >> here's the netbsd-boot file:
> >>
> >> ............................................................
> >> load -r ..\..\..\..\bin\ka655x.bin
> >> set cpu 64m
> >> ; SET CPU IDLE=NETBSD
> >> set tto 7b
> >> ; AT DZ 8888
> >> set rq0 ra92
> >> at rq0 netbsd.dsk
> >> at xq0 eth0
> >> boot cpu
> >>
> >> ; At the VMB prompt, type boot dua0:
> >> ............................................................
> >
> > I vaguely recall that there was at least one NetBSD version that was just
> broken and hadn't been tested on any VAX (real or simulated) before it was
> 'released'.
> >
> > I suggest you:
> > 1) try the same with simh 3.9
> > 2) try a later NetBSD release.
> >
> > If you're seeing a problem which persists across several NetBSD releases,
> and/or exists in the 4.0 code but not the 3.9 code, please open an issue at
> https://github.com/simh/simh/issues
> >
> > Have Fun.
> >
> > - Mark Pizzolato
> >
> 
> Thanks for the tips and info.
> 
> I've tried all versions of NetBSD 5.x (5.0.2, 5.1, 5.1.5, 5.2 and
> 5.2.3) that I can find on SIMH 4.0 beta and they all Segv. I have an old
> NetBSD 3 that boots and I tried NetBSD 6.0.4 and that also boots.
> 
> I am not able to run earlier versions of SIMH as I'm on Windows 10 64-bit
> and WinPCAP does not run on W10. I use NPcap on W10 and that doesn't
> work on earlier versions of SIMH which require WinPcap.

You shouldn't need WinPCAP merely to test if the CD image is bootable.
The point of the boot test exercise is to help determine if the problem is
in NetBSD or due to recent changes to simh.  If changes to simh are at 
fault, I'll track it down and fix the problem.

> I specifically want to run a 5.x version of NetBSD. I'm pretty sure it did
> run on SIMH 3.8-1 on Windows 7 before the upgrade. I need to downgrade a
> laptop I have to Win7 in the future and may try that. Until then I'll play
> with OpenBSD which doesn't seem to have any problems with SIMH 4.0 beta.

The boot test I'm suggesting will be far less work than setting up another
system.

Let me know.

- Mark