[Simh] VAX 8600: Can't boot Quasijarus (tape or disk)

[Henry Bent]

On 22 September 2017 at 18:10, Dario Niedermann <dario at darioniedermann.it>
wrote:

> Hello! I'm running "VAX 8600 simulator V4.0-0 Beta" (git commit id:
> c8a420ad) on a Linux/x86_64 host. I've installed 4.3BSD Quasijarus
> on an empty RA90-sized disk image, following the instructions at:
>
>         <http://www.tavi.co.uk/unixhistory/quasijarus.html>
>
> But I could never get the VAX 8600 emulator to boot...
>

I will admit to not being as familiar with Qasijarus as with some of the
other distributions, but I hope I can be of some help here.  Is there a
reason that you are specifically using the 8600 simulator?  Using the 3900
simulator will probably save a lot of headaches.


> From TQ0, attached to the .tap file provided at the site, emulator says
> "Command not allowed" when I give 'boot tq0'. 'sho tq all' returns
> "Controller is not initialized", while 'sho tq' outputs:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> TQ      TU81 (180MB), address=2013F940-2013F943, no vector, BR5, 4
> units
>   TQ0   attached to /home/ndr/lib/emu/quastape.tap, read only,
> write locked, SIMH format
>         capacity=188MB
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Is this due to the .tap file being (probably) made with the
> MicroVAX 3900 emulator?
>

I believe that the TQ is not a bootable device on the 8600.


>
> Issuing 'boot rq0', the emulator's output is:
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Loading boot code from internal vmb.exe
> loading boot
> ra(0,0,0,34): bad adaptor number
> boot failed
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Is it because I used the MicroVAX 3900 emulator to install BSD on the
> virtual ra0?
>
>
Okay, wait, there's a lot going on here that I think we've missed.  You
installed Quasijarus to an RA disk with the 3900 simulator and now you're
trying to move that disk to an 8600?  Does the disk have appropriate boot
blocks (raboot, bootra) and does the kernel support the 8600?

I have found that it is often easier - or even necessary - to load boot
blocks externally when working with the simulators for the large hardware.
If you can get a copy of Quasijarus's /boot, you can have the simulator
execute that file.  For regular 4.3BSD on an 8600, I would do something
like:

load -o boot 0
run 2

which will then ask

Boot
:

and I can tell it ra(0,0)vmunix or whatever the appropriate kernel is.

-Henry
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