[Simh] dec windows with simh

[Mark Pizzolato]

On Thursday, July 25, 2019 at 11:53 PM, Gérard Calliet wrote:
> I have used for a long time the simh emulation of microvax 3900. I need
> now to install and run DEC Windows on it.
> 
> Do you think it is possible? And is there a better simh VAX model for that?

A number of simulators with graphics capabilities exist, but they only have
graphics functionality on common desktop host system (Windows, Linux and 
OS/X) host systems.  In the past you've asked about running simulators on 
IA64 host systems running VMS.  Graphics is not implemented for VMS host
systems.

On host systems that support graphics, the MicroVAX 3900 simulator has 
long had support for monochrome graphics using the QVSS device.

This is easily achieved with:

	sim> SET MODEL=VAXSTATION

Since the original MicroVAX3900 hardware didn't actually support this mode of operation, the console boot ROM doesn't know about the graphics interface and thus still is presented via normal serial session.  Once VMS is running with DECwindows installed, everything can be done via the graphics session.  The advantage of using this configuration is that the MicroVAX3900 simulator can have 512MB of RAM which is far more than all of the other VAX simulators.

Other simulators which have other graphics options can also be configure to use the graphics that they contain.  The see HELP CPU SET for what the SET MODEL choices are.

- Mark