[Simh] Help with loading vax82b zip file into simh/vms

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2019-04-06 00:33, Phil Budne wrote:
> Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
>> In DEC terminology those are words.
>> It goes: byte, word, longword, quadword, octaword. (8, 16, 32, 64, 128
>> bits.)
>> Halfword is something that I first saw on Motorola 68K, but maybe it's
>> been used elsewhere as well. But it feels wrong to use that terminology
>> on DEC systems.
> 
> Well, in the DEC VAX world!

Sorry. Yes. Well, the VAX was not the start of it. It's just an 
extension of the PDP-11. For which the natural size of a word was 
obviously 16 bits. And the VAX just kept the terminology. But since the 
question was related to a file in VMS, I think it's fair to keep the 
terminology of those machines here...

> I came from the DEC world of 36 bit words, and 18 bit halfwords.

Right.

> I was a member of of the SAFE project, a 64-bit VAX datatype
> compatible RISC machine led by Alan Kotok (the KA10 designer).
> Instructions were named by how many bits they operated on.  When
> Cutler absconded with the project and renamed it PRISM, they replaced
> 8/16/32/64 with B/W/L/Q.
> 
> Morons.

Don't be to touchy. All is long gone now anyway. :-)

   Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol