[Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation

[Zane Healy]

Thanks for the information Dave!  I’m glad to hear it’s still being worked on.  I can well imagine what a pain the firmware is, especially if you’re trying to support both the SRM and ARC firmware.  I wish I could help.  From my standpoint, getting SIMH to boot OpenVMS would be a big deal.  

Are you working to support a specific platform?  I’m curious since not every system supports SRM or ARC, and many of the PCI boards were only supported by Windows NT.

Would you like me to put a note on the webpage for anyone interested in helping to contact you via the SIMH mailing list?

Zane


> On Feb 2, 2018, at 10:01 AM, Hittner, David T [US] (MS) <david.hittner at ngc.com> wrote:
> 
> Well, Migration Specialties is where the developer of ES40 went, anyway. :-)
> 
> I'm working on the SIMH Alpha simulator. It is quite a complex beast, where the firmware required to power up the system to the chevrons (>>>) is an operating system of small Linux complexity even before you can try to boot OpenVMS, TRU64 or WinNT.  I think the simulation currently runs some 56 billion instructions before encountering a missing hardware simulation, and it's nowhere near the chevrons - and hasn't even built the OS interface block or the FW-level device tables yet.
> 
> If anyone would like to help with the Alpha development, I wouldn't say no. It takes a long time to figure what the RISC firmware is trying to accomplish. :-)
> 
> Dave
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Vorländer, Martin
> Sent: Friday, February 2, 2018 3:16 AM
> To: 'SIMH' <simh at trailing-edge.com>
> Subject: EXT :Re: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation
> 
> Zane,
> 
> just had a look at your Alpha page, and noticed that you missed an emulator:
> FreeAXP / Avanti from Migration Specialties, http://www.migrationspecialties.com/
> This is where the ES40 emulator went, AFAIK.
> 
> cu,
> Martin
> 
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] Im Auftrag von Zane Healy
> Gesendet: Freitag, 2. Februar 2018 05:56
> An: SIMH <simh at trailing-edge.com>
> Betreff: [Simh] DEC Alpha Emulation
> 
> I'm in the process of slowly updating my DEC Emulation website, which has been largely stagnant since 2007.  The first page I'm spending some significant time on is the DEC Alpha page, as I'm curious to see what the current options are.  In reviewing things, I notice that Alpha emulation was worked on at some point for SIMH (probably around 2006).  What is the current state of that work?  I had a quick google, and the most popular hit seems to be mirrored copies of my site. 
> 
> http://www.avanthar.com/healyzh/decemulation/Alpha.html
> 
> Thanks,
> Zane
> 
> 
> 
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