[Simh] More VAX Simulators

Tue May 14 04:32:27 EDT 2019

OK, so I asked because I’ve not had much luck searching for stuff recently online, but as it happens the answer was in my archive of condists:

http://hecnet.eu/archive/VAX_MEDIA/1992_NOV_CDBIN10NOV2/CDBIN10NOV23/VWS044/LINE_DOCS/VWS044_SPD.TXT;1 

VMS Workstation Software (VWS) is a VMS layered product that

           provides windowing and graphics support for the VAXstation

           II, VAXstation II/GPX, VAXstation 2000, VAXstation 3100 Mod-

           els 30/40/38/48/76, VAXstation 3200, VAXstation 3500, VAX

           4000 Model 200, and VAX 4000 Model 300 with GPX Graphics op-

           tion.

So it looks like I should be able to get this working!

Regards, Mark.

From: mark at wickensonline.co.uk <mark at wickensonline.co.uk> 
Sent: 14 May 2019 09:27
To: 'simh' <simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: FW: [Simh] More VAX Simulators

Matt (or anyone else!)

Is there a version of your VAX emulator with graphical output and VMS combination that can run VMS Workstation Software (VS Windows?) 

Thanks, Mark.

From: Simh <simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com <mailto:simh-bounces at trailing-edge.com> > On Behalf Of Matt Burke
Sent: 11 May 2019 11:01
To: simh at trailing-edge.com <mailto:simh at trailing-edge.com> 
Subject: Re: [Simh] More VAX Simulators

On 11/05/2019 00:29, Tony Nicholson wrote:

The Ethernet routine in SIMH (vax_xs.c) uses some details from the VAXstation 2000 implementation of the LANCE controller chip.  I think the same interface is used in the VAXstation 3100 M38 being emulated - but I'd need to see a VAXstation 3100 Technical Manual (if it was produced).  One I've seen in my Google searches is a EK-A0525-TD manual referenced for the 3100 model 40 and 80 but no copy of it seems to be available online.

All of the recently added VAX simulators use the same LANCE Ethernet, which is an AMD AM2990 chip. The only difference between them is the way that addresses output by the AM2990 are mapped into main memory. The LANCE is described in section 5.4 of the VAXstation 2000 Technical Manual (EK-VTTAA-TM-001):

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/410/EK-VTTAA-TM-001_VS2000_TechRef_Jul87.pdf

Another good source of information is the datasheet for the AM2990:

http://www.sintran.com/sintran/library/libother/extern/AM7990.pdf

These systems were built from many off the shelf parts so DEC technical manuals are not necessarily required. Devices such as the SCSI controller for the VAXstation 4000 M60 I wrote entirely using the datasheet for the NCR 53C94 chip.

Other details such as the address mapping were worked out by looking at operating system source listings and experimenting with real hardware.

There are schematics available for parts of these systems under:

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/410/
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/vax/3100/

Matt

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/pipermail/simh/attachments/20190514/4e816c94/attachment.html>