[Simh] EXT : Alpha ES40 emulator

[Hittner, David T [US] (MS)]

The ES40 emulator does have some issues, and development has been discontinued. From the ES40 home page:  http://es40.org/Homepage
Discontinuation Notice

ES40 emulator development has virtually been halted since 2009. The lead developer of ES40, Camiel Vanderhoevenis developing both Freeware and Commercial Alpha and VAX emulators for Migration Specialties.

FreeAXP<http://www.freeaxp.com/> is the Freeware Alpha emulator from Migration Specialties.

Avanti<http://www.migrationspecialties.com/Emulator-Alpha.html> is the Freeware Alpha emulator from Migration Specialties.


I (and the ES40 author) would highly recommend that you use Migration Specialties's FreeAXP emulator instead of ES40 if you are just looking to successfully run OpenVMS on an Alpha emulator. FreeAXP is a stable and supported Alpha emulator for both OpenVMS and TRU64 and is available at no cost.

http://www.migrationspecialties.com/FreeAXP.html

Dave

From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Tim Stark
Sent: Monday, February 19, 2018 8:33 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: EXT :[Simh] Alpha ES40 emulator

Folks,

While I am waiting for SIMH version of Alpha emulator, I tried ES40 emulator from Sourceforge.net.  I converted ES40 repo to git repo and uploaded it into my github.

I tried to compile but got many errors.  I figured them out and applied SMR11's sources to my git repo and successfully compiled it on Ubuntu 17.10.  You have to execute reconf first to rebuild autoconf files to be compitable with Ubuntu 17.10's autoconf packages.  I updated it on git repo done.   I found SMR11's video clips for how to install OpenVMS Alpha 8.4 system on YouTube.

I tried to configure NIC on es40_cfg but it crashed after I selected 'nic'.  I have to manually enter nic block into es40.cfg.  I tried to started es40 emulator and it crashed after I selected one of NIC adaptors. I got opening adaptor error.

I have some trouble with finding cl67srmrom.exe through Internet.  I tried cl67srmrom.exe from V61.iso but it did not work so well.  It crashed after printed PALcode message.

I searched for good version of cl67srmrom.exe through Internet and got binaries from Sourceforge.net and replaced it.  I successfully booted SRM firmware into POO>>> prompt.

I tried cl67srmrom.sys and it failed to boot.  I examined its executable file and it looks like MOP header.  Does anyone know any MOP header specs? Look at first 256 bytes of cl67srmrom.sys:

00000000: A8 00 30 00 44 00 58 00-00 00 00 00 30 32 30 35  |..0.D.X.....0205|
00000010: 01 01 00 00 FF FF FF FF-FF FF FF FF 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000020: 20 00 00 01 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  | ...............|
00000030: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000050: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-03 4D 4F 50 00 00 00 00  |.........MOP....|
00000060: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000080: 04 56 31 2E 30 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.V1.0...........|
00000090: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-05 30 35 2D 30 35 00 00  |.........05-05..|
000000A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-10 00 87 15 00 00 00 00  |................|
000000B0: 80 00 00 00 02 00 00 00-00 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF  |................|
000000C0: FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF-FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF  |................|
000000D0: FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF-FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF  |................|
000000E0: FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF-FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF  |................|
000000F0: FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF-FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF  |................|

With good version of cl67srmrom.exe, I successfully booted into POO>>> prompt.

I successfully loaded and run OpenVMS Alpha 8.4 and followed installation prompts.

During installation, it crashed system with access violation error.  I think that ES40 still have some bugs with some opcodes and NIC configuration.

Does anyone have any HCORE tests for Alpha processors?  I am looking for it in long time!

Thanks,
Tim
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