[Simh] 32V on SIMH

[Kevin Handy]

>
>
> Which brings up networking.  No one to my knowledge at AT&T ported an IP
> stack, although it does come with uucp.   So, setting up Taylor uucp on a
> UNIX host side and running through the virtual serial port you can network
> V7 style to 32V.   All the basic uucp tools are there and should “just
> work.”   Although, since this is the original uucp implementation, you want
> to hunt around and update the scripts to make it easier to manage and use,
> as the original uucp had some rough edges and compared to what you will see
> in the Taylor package, the 32V implementation may seem pretty crude.
>
>
>
> As other folks have noted the BBN and BSD support for IP/TCP/Ethernet for
> VAX UNIX would not be available for a few years. What is interesting is
> that the 3Com UNET was written for pure V7 as Paul has recently noted.   If
> we can manage to dig up the UNET sources and get it released from 3Com, it
> might actually be a reasonable IP/TCP stack for V32 since its needs are
> small and much of it is actually is user space.    Technically, besides the
> obvious thing of UNET having not been released on the VAX to my knowledge
> [Tek had an 11/70 and IIRC Borden and Shaw were using a 11/45], the biggest
> issues is getting UNET to work for you will be that you will need an
> Ethernet driver for 32V that talks to simh.  Greg Shaw wrote a V7 driver
> for the 3Com 3Cx01 series Unibus board which should be in the UNET sources,
> but alas I do not believe simh has support for it.  Also, if I find UNET
> for Paul in my archives, I should also have Steve Glaser’s HyperChannel
> driver in the same sources. So, it should be possible to look at Greg’s and
> Steve’s drivers, and the try to write one for one of the DEC supported
> Ethernet controllers of the 780 that simh supports.  Anyway, putting that
> all together, might give you ftp and telnet – but such a project is going
> to take a lot of work and I wonder if it worth it.
>
>
>
>
>
> Which brings me to point #2.   What’s missing on 32/V.   As I said, a
> number of folks have pulled together different tools for V7 from 1BSD,
> 2BSD, the Harvard Tapes, USENIX tapes *etc. *so you can have an editor
> besides *ed* and the like.  Google in your friend here.  But you are
> likely to want to build up the toolkit a bit.  And this opens up the first
> big can of worms.   The problem is that V7 that C (and UNIX) changed over
> time.  So you will have to be careful about which versions you can move.
> V7 C is “white book” K&R – which is good, much of the either code from
> 1BSD, Harvard et al, is before that, so the compiler does supports the
> standard I/O library and most basic language features accept for function
> prototypes that are needed; although the libraries may not be as
> complete.    So, this is where, looking what people have done in making V7
> more comfortable will be a huge help – it should tell you the types of
> things that you will need and where to grab them to build some of the
> simpler tools.
>
>
>
>
>
> The final point is moving code from the new world to the old world.
> Function prototypes is just the beginning; whole subsystems will be
> missing.   Warren has probably taken this the farthest with xv6-freebsd [
> https://github.com/DoctorWkt/xv6-freebsd] work – the key point is that
> you are likely to unhappy with the tools as is.  So how much do you need?
>

Depending on why you are running 32V, putting current software on it
probably defeats the reasons you are running it. If you want to see what
Unix was like back when, replacing all the old stuff with current stuff
wouldn't make sense. You might as well just run a current BSD in that case
and avoid the hassels of updating everything to make 32V look more current.

If you're running it just to have a VAX Unix, then NetBSD (or similar)
would be a better starting point for something more modern. More tools are
already in the distribution, as well as more current C compilers and
libraries.

If you are just playing around, it doesn't matter what  you do. Some things
are just for the entertainment value.

It really depends on why you are running such an old version.
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