<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:16px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4672">Just curious:</div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4673"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4542">Is HSC firmware and software available?</div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4380">(Well, I know someone who has a live system running with HSCs</div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4561"><a href="http://fafner.dyndns.org/" class="" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4560">http://fafner.dyndns.org</a></div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4557">telnet fafner.dyndns.org<br></div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4674">so the software for at least *some* HSC models might be retrievable, less sure about the firmware.)<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4379"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4378">Does there exist a sufficiently detailed hardware spec on the HSC? if yes, which models?<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4377"><br></div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4376">In particular, a description of CI/SC interface from the HSC side?</div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4472">After all, the source code for VMS and BSD is available, so one might hypothetically infer what they expect from CI by reverse-engineering the source code.</div><div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4506">But what about the J-11 side?<br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4375"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4242"><span>Thanks,</span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4374"><span>Sergey</span><br></div><div class="qtdSeparateBR" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4243"><br></div><div class="yahoo_quoted" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4247" style="display: block;"> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4246"> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4245"> <div dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4244"> <font id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4248" size="2" face="Arial"> <hr id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4373" size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Mark Pizzolato <Mark@infocomm.com>; "simh@trailing-edge.com" <simh@trailing-edge.com> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, March 11, 2017 1:15 PM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [Simh] LAVC<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1489267461048_4249"><br>On 2017-03-11 19:41, Mark Pizzolato wrote:<br clear="none">> On Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 10:06 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:<br clear="none">>> On 2017-03-11 17:18, Mark Pizzolato wrote:<br clear="none">>>> On Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 5:49 AM, Tim Stark wrote:<br clear="none">>>>> Thanks for many replies. I learned a lot about VAX clustering. I will<br clear="none">>>>> use multicast Ethernet for clustering. I have more one question. Is<br clear="none">>>>> that possible to emulate HSC controllers with LAVC access?<br clear="none">>>><br clear="none">>>> When Matt Burke and I were discussing the CI concept, we picked IP<br clear="none">>>> Multicast as transport for the very specific reason that all modern<br clear="none">>>> host systems will have natural user mode programming access to<br clear="none">>>> implement this functionality. Attempting to create your own Ethernet<br clear="none">>>> multicast protocol (non-IP based) will have portability complexities<br clear="none">>>> on different platforms due to the fact different platforms have<br clear="none">>>> varying support (and potentially require privilege) to present and/or<br clear="none">>>> receive raw Ethernet frames to/from a LAN.<br clear="none">>><br clear="none">>> I don't know for sure, but I assume that Tim just meant that he will let LAVC<br clear="none">>> do as LAVC does, without him doing anything.<br clear="none">>> And LAVC itself might be using ethernet multicasting.<br clear="none">>> This is no more an issue than DECnet communication, which also requires<br clear="none">>> access to the raw ethernet.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">> True. It could use the existing raw Ethernet access methods, but that approach<br clear="none">> would have the following issues:<br clear="none">> 1) Some platforms require significant privilege (root) to do this.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Same as DECnet.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> 2) He would have to re-invent much of what LAVC does.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I thought he was talking just about LAVC, not inventing something new.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> 3) The same problems that exist today on *nix hosts to provide a<br clear="none">> mechanism for multiple simulators running on the same host to be able to<br clear="none">> concurrently communicate with each other will exist.<br clear="none">><br clear="none">> An IP multicast based solution lets the host OS solve much of this.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Either you or me is missing something. I thought he was just talking <br clear="none">about using LAVC (and thus raw ethernet) for clustering. Meaning he'll <br clear="none">just fire up is simh instance, and start running. And that's the end of it.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Seems like you are thinking he is going to implement something. Not sure <br clear="none">exactly what. Emulate CI? Possible, but will require a lot more work <br clear="none">than just transporting the bytes over the network. But, that said, it <br clear="none">probably makes sense to use IP instead of raw ethernet if you are going <br clear="none">to implement this. And my reasoning for that don't have as much to do <br clear="none">with any network access (which you still will want to have for DECnet <br clear="none">anyhow), but because CI frames are something like 8K in size. So you're <br clear="none">going to have to implement some kind of complex layer on top of ethernet <br clear="none">if you do that. And then you are going to get close to what IP/UDP will <br clear="none">do for you anyhow, so why reinvent the wheel?<br clear="none"><br clear="none"> Johnny<br clear="none"><br clear="none">-- <br clear="none">Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus<br clear="none"> || on a psychedelic trip<br clear="none">email: <a shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:bqt@softjar.se" href="mailto:bqt@softjar.se">bqt@softjar.se</a> || Reading murder books<br clear="none">pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol<div class="yqt2973313210" id="yqtfd59680"><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">Simh mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:Simh@trailing-edge.com" href="mailto:Simh@trailing-edge.com">Simh@trailing-edge.com</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh" target="_blank">http://mailman.trailing-edge.com/mailman/listinfo/simh</a></div><br><br></div> </div> </div> </div></div></body></html>