[Simh] MOP header specs?

[Tim Stark]

Well I analyzed SYS and EXE of cl67srmrom firmware.  I now discovered that SYS have same EXE content with first 512 bytes MOP header and execute start at 0x200 offset.

 

To convert to EXE file, get rid of first 512 bytes (MOP header).   That EXE file mentions about LFU and allow execute to the beginning of EXE file directly (zero offset). 

 

Tim

 

From: Simh [mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com] On Behalf Of Timothe Litt
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2018 11:20 AM
To: simh at trailing-edge.com
Subject: Re: [Simh] MOP header specs?

 

For VAX/Alpha code from VMS, .sys would be an executable linked /NOHEADER.  This would be a raw memory image; no ISDs or compression, just bits.

In this case, it appears to be a SRM console image that was extracted from an HP firmware update kit.

The header is used by the firmware update utility and by the SRM's show version (IIRC).

There's no reason for this to be loaded via MOP, at least on real hardware; SRM contains the MOP client.

FYI, when qemu was working on alpha emulation, they applied some patches to that image - I have no clue what they do or why.  See https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2009-03/msg00693.html

On 21-Feb-18 10:47, Timothy Stark wrote:



Ok I figured out what is boot block in cl67srmrom.sys. There was no exe version (only sys files) for SROM on some Alpha firmware iso files.  I checked other larger sys files with exe files are almost same boot block for MOP loader.  Exe files are raw binaries to can be loaded and run by dummy simple loader.  

 

 

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