New free Alpha emulator - AlphaVM-free
artem
I would like to announce a field test release of a new free Alpha emulator - AlphaVM-free. This emulator is made to replace full Alpha systems. You are free to use it for hobbyist or commercial purposes. It has no expiration date; the registration is not needed.
This emulator currently runs on 32 and 64 bit incarnations of Windows 7; the 64-bit build is faster. Please visit http://emuvm.com for more information and downloads.
In the near future we are planning to come up with a commercial version, which will among other improvements have better performance.
Artem Alimarin
MG
> I would like to announce a field test release of a new free Alpha emulator - AlphaVM-free. This emulator is made to replace full Alpha systems. You are free to use it for hobbyist or commercial purposes. It has no expiration date; the registration is not needed.
>
> This emulator currently runs on 32 and 64 bit incarnations of Windows 7; the 64-bit build is faster. Please visit http://emuvm.com for more information and downloads.
It's a nice touch that I can now freely emulate a bit more powerful
AXP system, an HP AlphaServer DS20 with an EV6 at ~524 MHz and 512 MB
RAM even. It's also a nice touch that one can generate larger virtual
disks, like an RZ59.
Besides the graphical user interface, it reminds me a lot of FreeAXP
and Personal AXP. Even some of the naming conventions (like the CD-ROM
device name naming convention "\\.\Cdrom0").
Either way, thanks for sharing!
- MG
MG
> Besides the graphical user interface, it reminds me a lot of FreeAXP
> and Personal AXP.
(Correction: I of course meant Personal Alpha. - MG)
artem
The free version is still limited in performance. It is EV6 functionally, but significantly slower. The performance is still to be done and it is left for a commercial version ;-)
The \\.\Cdrom0 thing is just Windows name for a Cdrom device, that is why it is the same. Later I'll make a better way of selecting a cdrom device.
VAXman-
Another crap-Weendoze only emulation.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
All your spirit rack abuses, come to haunt you back by day.
All your Byzantine excuses, given time, given you away.
Michael Kraemer
> In article
> <670a13c3-670a-46ea...@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com>,
> artem <brako...@gmail.com> writes:
> >The basic idea is indeed the same as of PA and FreeAXP - it is a whole-system
> replacement of Alpha systems.
> >
> >The free version is still limited in performance. It is EV6 functionally, but
> significantly slower. The performance is still to be done and it is left for a
> commercial version ;-)
> >
> >The \\.\Cdrom0 thing is just Windows name for a Cdrom device, that is why it
> is the same. Later I'll make a better way of selecting a cdrom device.
>
> Another crap-Weendoze only emulation.
Palmer's curse, called "Affinity".
VAXman-
I'd be ROTFLMFAO if it wasn't sadly true.
MG
> The basic idea is indeed the same as of PA and FreeAXP - it is awhole-
> system replacement of Alpha systems.
Nonetheless, you did a very good job!
For those who want to learn more about VMS and get the opportunity to
try/use it and who are not fortunate enough to come across good second-
hand VAX, Alpha or IA-64 deals, they can fortunately still emulate with
excellent software such as this.
Ultimately, I hope this will prove to be useful for the cause of VMS.
> The free version is still limited in performance. It is EV6functionally,
> but significantly slower. The performance is still to be done and it
> isleft for a commercial version ;-)
I'm also very satisfied in that respect! Though, I haven't really
compared the performance with, say, FreeAXP and Personal Alpha.
> The \\.\Cdrom0 thing is just Windows name for a Cdrom device, thatis why it
> is the same. Later I'll make a better way of selecting a cdrom device.
Thanks for clearing that up, it has been a while since I developed
anything for Windows. I only have one Windows system which I'm more
or less forced to use for university work (for certain software).
- MG
Ramon Jimenez
> This emulator currently runs on 32 and 64 bit incarnations of Windows 7; the 64-bit build is faster. Please visithttp://emuvm.comfor more information and downloads.
Hi, isn't there any version for Window XP?
Regards
artem
If you wanted to attract as much people as possible to a product, on which system would you choose to release first?
Hein RMS van den Heuvel
> Would you be interested in a Linux version? The framework of the emulator has been developed on both Windows and Linux/posix/cygwin. So it is not far from running on Linux, but there would be no user interface, which is probably not so big problem for you.
>
> If you wanted to attract as much people as possible to a product, on which system would you choose to release first?
Considering that there are 2 fine Alplha emulator options available on
windows already, I would think that a strong Linux base would add
differentiation value.
How many Alpha Emulators does the world need?
2c
Hein
Ramon Jimenez
> If you wanted to attract as much people as possible to a product, on which system would you choose to release first?
Most used one, altough wikipedia is not always a reliable source for
info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
It would be interestering to know who requieres and Alpha Emulator and
this is not a question too simple to answer.
Paul Sture
I agree. An Alpha emulator which supports more than one platform
is also a differentiator at the moment, especially considering the
recent shenanigins with Oracle.
artem
We have started with a limited number of supported configurations to limit the number of combinations we have to test. Later we will add support of other host configurations.
JF Mezei
interested in VMS. Linux or OS-X ones would.
From a business point of view, since servers are going Linux instead of
Windows, having a linux server act as a host for VMS would make more sense.
Paul Sture
Linux is also moving forward in the virtual machine world.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2wdlavq
I've had a play with KVM (the Linux virtual host) and it certainly
works. It's designed to host server rather than GUI based
clients (think lean and mean).
Sprag
>
> If you wanted to attract as much people as possible to a product, on which system would you choose to release first?
I'm just a hobbyist, but I'd think that RHEL 5/6 or Centos 5/6 would
catch the bulk of the people who'd be using it for serious things
VAXman-
>Would you be interested in a Linux version? The framework of the emulator h=
>as been developed on both Windows and Linux/posix/cygwin. So it is not far =
>from running on Linux, but there would be no user interface, which is proba=
>bly not so big problem for you.=20
I'm all for a Linux version. A command line is just fine with me and, in
fact, preferable.
>If you wanted to attract as much people as possible to a product, on which =
>system would you choose to release first?
Anything but WEENDOZE!
VAXman-
>On Apr 1, 9:55=A0am, artem <brakozi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Would you be interested in a Linux version? The framework of the emulator=
> has been developed on both Windows and Linux/posix/cygwin. So it is not fa=
>r from running on Linux, but there would be no user interface, which is pro=
>bably not so big problem for you.
>>
>h system would you choose to release first?
>
>Considering that there are 2 fine Alplha emulator options available on
>windows already, I would think that a strong Linux base would add
>differentiation value.
>
>How many Alpha Emulators does the world need?
>
>2c
>
>Hein
A simple "# apt-get install" would be even more attractive!
Paul Sture
VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> A simple "# apt-get install" would be even more attractive!
Agreed. Once you get used to apt-get, PRODUCT INSTALL followed by a
bunch of largely unnecessary questons seems quaint.
And you can bash those "apt-get install" instructions into a script
and if you try Linux Mint (a desktop distribution aimed at those who
simply want a working system, proprietary code included), there's a
nice utility to save your software selection and restore it to a new
system. It's neat. A few minutes after creating a new system, you can
have a duplicate with your software selection all there.
P.S. A vote for claws-mail here. It looks very like Apple Mail (caveat
it's somewhat slower on connecting to an IMAP server), but it can do
newsgroups as well.
Bob Eager
> And you can bash those "apt-get install" instructions into a script
'pkg_add' is equally nice on FreeBSD.
> P.S. A vote for claws-mail here. It looks very like Apple Mail (caveat
> it's somewhat slower on connecting to an IMAP server), but it can do
> newsgroups as well.
Hear hear. Lots of nice add-ons too. Although I use 'pan' for
newsreading; there's something to be said for separating the two, and not
joining the ranks of those who post emails to newsgroups! .-)
--
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning protection* - a w_tom conductor
Richard B. Gilbert
Windows XP has been obsolete for two or three years. It's no longer
supported by Microsoft. I still use it and I think I have lots of company!
If you want to port something to Windows XP, you're on your own!
OTOH, you shouldn't need a lot of support from Microsoft. XP has been
on the streets for several years now. What you build for W/2K or W/XP
*should* work on the release it was built for and any succeeding release!
Richard B. Gilbert
As long as I have a working Alpha, NONE!
VAXman-
>On Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:09:07 +0200, Paul Sture wrote:
>
>> And you can bash those "apt-get install" instructions into a script
>
>'pkg_add' is equally nice on FreeBSD.
There are a number of these: pkg_add, apt-get, aptitude, yum...
It's the download tar.gz and sketchy build instructions I'd try to avoid.
Arne Vajhøj
> From a hobbyist point of view, I am not sure windows weenies would be
> interested in VMS. Linux or OS-X ones would.
Why not. Most people working with VMS servers will have a Windows PC to
work on.
> From a business point of view, since servers are going Linux instead of
> Windows, having a linux server act as a host for VMS would make more sense.
For a server running something: yes.
For development: not necessarily.
Arne
Arne Vajhøj
There are also other products - you can run VMWare on Linux.
Arne
artem
VAXman-
>On 01-04-2011 11:17, JF Mezei wrote:
>> From a hobbyist point of view, I am not sure windows weenies would be
>> interested in VMS. Linux or OS-X ones would.
>
>Why not. Most people working with VMS servers will have a Windows PC to
>work on.
WEENDOZE? Never had it; never will.
Perhaps, the key word here is "free." That's a concept devoid of meaning
to lawyers and Micro$haft. Who wants to outlay money for buggy software
from Micro$haft and for myriad headaches remedies as a result of using it
to run a free Alpha emulator? Not me!!!
And, _IF_ I were looking to run an Alpha emulation for something serious,
I'd want to run it on a server -- a linux server where I'd be able to trim
away its unnecessary OS appendages would be my choice; not the bloatwarez
WEENDOZE gaming console with its requisite utilities like Minesweeper and
Solitaire.
BillPedersen
> It is of course possible to support XP and run the same code on XP, Vista and 7. There is a choice between running on XP or using some useful Vista/W7 specific extensions. I have chosen the second thinking that XP is obsolete.
I think you might want to gather some statistics here.
Using Google Analytics as a mechanism for instance I can tell you that
for some small websites I manage, both technical and retail in content
Windows makes up between 80% and 90% of the traffic coming to those
sites and XP makes up between 50% and 60% of the Windows traffic.
To say it is "obsolete" is one thing.
To ignore its level of use in the market place is another.
Now, one would argue that the XP percentage will continue to drop.
And yes, it will but it is a sizable enough percentage still that you
would probably want to reconsider some of your initial design
decisions to at least get exposure.
Good luck with your project.
Bill.
Paul Sture
Bob Eager <rd...@spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:09:07 +0200, Paul Sture wrote:
>
> > And you can bash those "apt-get install" instructions into a script
>
> 'pkg_add' is equally nice on FreeBSD.
Have VMware Workstation. It's just a download away ;-)
And it makes sense since that is what my hosting ISP runs. I need to
grab bsdtar to unpack .tar.gz files from that.
> > P.S. A vote for claws-mail here. It looks very like Apple Mail
> > (caveat it's somewhat slower on connecting to an IMAP server), but
> > it can do newsgroups as well.
>
> Hear hear. Lots of nice add-ons too. Although I use 'pan' for
> newsreading; there's something to be said for separating the two, and
> not joining the ranks of those who post emails to newsgroups! .-)
>
Unfortunately 'pan' is one of the offenders in the AM/PM area. Over 30
years of computer experience here and it drives me nuts. There's an
I/O stats package (sysstat) which does the same. Aaargh
(actually for pan this was reported as fixed about a decade ago, but it
got a rewrite into C++. I did look at the source, but someone else
has obviously run around in circles before in the relevant bit of
code. Life is too short.)
Paul Sture
VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> In article <8vmqdh...@mid.individual.net>, Bob Eager
> <rd...@spamcop.net> writes:
> >On Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:09:07 +0200, Paul Sture wrote:
> >
> >> And you can bash those "apt-get install" instructions into a script
> >
> >'pkg_add' is equally nice on FreeBSD.
>
> There are a number of these: pkg_add, apt-get, aptitude, yum...
>
> It's the download tar.gz and sketchy build instructions I'd try to
> avoid.
>
Surprisingly this is where Linux beats OS X. Yes, there is macports,
but it can take hours on my kit. It will cheerfully download and
recompile things like zlib, gettext* et al, even though the package I
downloaded the day before brought those down already.
* As John Malmberg commented when he did the gnv port, gettext is HUGE.
Paul Sture
I tried it on Ubuntu and got truly lousy performance when doing heavy
I/O. Since then a new release of VMware has appeared and it
officially supports Ubuntu 10.10, so that may make a difference.
Paul Sture
BillPedersen <pede...@ccsscorp.com> wrote:
> I think you might want to gather some statistics here.
>
> Using Google Analytics as a mechanism for instance I can tell you that
> for some small websites I manage, both technical and retail in content
> Windows makes up between 80% and 90% of the traffic coming to those
> sites and XP makes up between 50% and 60% of the Windows traffic.
I do hope that you are filtering various bots out of those statistics,
since many of them claim to be running various versions of Windows.
> To say it is "obsolete" is one thing.
>
> To ignore its level of use in the market place is another.
>
> Now, one would argue that the XP percentage will continue to drop.
> And yes, it will but it is a sizable enough percentage still that you
> would probably want to reconsider some of your initial design
> decisions to at least get exposure.
There are probably a lot of corporates who will still be running XP for
quite a while yet, and these very corporates could be part of this
product's target market.
> Good luck with your project.
Ditto. Good luck!
Michael Unger
> On Apr 2, 5:11 am, artem <brakozi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> It is of course possible to support XP and run the same code on XP, Vista and 7. There is a choice between running on XP or using some useful Vista/W7 specific extensions. I have chosen the second thinking that XP is obsolete.
>
> I think you might want to gather some statistics here.
>
> Using Google Analytics as a mechanism for instance I can tell you that
> for some small websites I manage, both technical and retail in content
> Windows makes up between 80% and 90% of the traffic coming to those
> sites and XP makes up between 50% and 60% of the Windows traffic.
AFAIK Google Analytics is based on JavaScript, so browsers either not
supporting JS at all or users having disabled JS on purpose can not be
counted. It seems to be quite popular for users running Windows systems
to set the security to "wide open".
> [...]
Michael, still running WinXP ...
--
Real names enhance the probability of getting real answers.
My e-mail account at DECUS Munich is no longer valid.
JF Mezei
> Surprisingly this is where Linux beats OS X. Yes, there is macports,
> but it can take hours on my kit.
I've been told to stay away from macports.
It is, at the end of the day, faster and safer to just compile the stuff
yourself instead of using macports. Macports tries to have its onw copy
of the operatinfg system and messes with the PATH variable to break things.
Paul Sture
JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Paul Sture wrote:
>
> > Surprisingly this is where Linux beats OS X. Yes, there is
> > macports, but it can take hours on my kit.
>
> I've been told to stay away from macports.
>
> It is, at the end of the day, faster and safer to just compile the
> stuff yourself instead of using macports.
Thanks JF. Working out the dependencies of all the packages can seem
never ending, but it _is_ a better way to go.
> Macports tries to have its onw copy of the operatinfg system and
> messes with the PATH variable to break things.
I blew fink away circa 2005 for exactly those reasons.
JF Mezei
> Thanks JF. Working out the dependencies of all the packages can seem
> never ending, but it _is_ a better way to go.
As an example: installing the "real" wireshark on OS-X is much faster
than installing it via macports because macports wants to duplicate much
of the stuff that is already on OS-X.
And if you ever try to install something that isn't macport, you risk
not even compiling properly (for instance, installing ghostscript from
source, which I did so I could patch the la75 output).
Paul Sture
Thanks for the warning. I haven't come across that one to date, but
it's something to be aware of.
Bob Koehler
The only systems we have running 7 shipped with it. It's not yet
widely adapted anywhere I know of. Everyone is still runnning XP.
Microsoft be damned.
BillPedersen
Koehler) wrote:
> In article <ebea6686-79fa-438a-a95f-d428a88b8...@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com>, artem <brakozi...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > It is of course possible to support XP and run the same code on XP, Vista
> >and 7. There is a choice between running on XP or using some useful Vista/W7
> >specific extensions. I have chosen the second thinking that XP is obsolete.
>
> The only systems we have running 7 shipped with it. It's not yet
> widely adapted anywhere I know of. Everyone is still runnning XP.
> Microsoft be damned.
Can not be that "obsolete" if M$ is offering a "very nice" XP
Compatibility Mode" as a download for W7. Used it along with set up
virtual system on my new desktop/side system to give Linux and XP
development environments.
There may be some confusion as W2K has been unsupported for some time
and users with XP SP2 lost support last July, but XP SP3 is still
supported by M$.
Richard B. Gilbert
Well said! W/XP has been running for years on my system. It works
which is more than can be said for most of its predecessors! I won't
upgrade until circumstances force me to. It has been years since I last
saw the "Blue Screen of Death" and I like it that way!
Bob Koehler
>
> Well said! W/XP has been running for years on my system. It works
> which is more than can be said for most of its predecessors! I won't
> upgrade until circumstances force me to. It has been years since I last
> saw the "Blue Screen of Death" and I like it that way!
Well, I don't know which Windows they are using, but I saw a BSOD
just last week on a Shell station's video display over the pump.
Jan-Erik Soderholm
> On 4/4/2011 9:39 AM, Bob Koehler wrote:
>> In
>> article<ebea6686-79fa-438a...@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com>,
>> artem<brako...@gmail.com> writes:
>>> It is of course possible to support XP and run the same code on XP, Vista
>>> and 7. There is a choice between running on XP or using some useful
>>> Vista/W7
>>> specific extensions. I have chosen the second thinking that XP is obsolete.
>>
>> The only systems we have running 7 shipped with it. It's not yet
>> widely adapted anywhere I know of.
Says more about what you "know of" then anything else.
>> Everyone is still runnning XP.
>> Microsoft be damned.
>>
>
> Well said!
Silly, I'd say.
> W/XP has been running for years on my system. It works which is
> more than can be said for most of its predecessors!
In a few years W7 will have been running for years on my current laptop.
And before that WinXP had been running for years on my previous laptop.
So what ?
And what has the predecessors to WinXP to do with W7 !?
Every sold PC for about a half to a year back was shipped with W7.
And since half a year back, WinXP isn't even shipped as an option.
And many/most PC's are replaced withing 3-4 years anyway...
John Wallace
wrote:
> Richard B. Gilbert wrote 2011-04-05 21:55:
>
> > On 4/4/2011 9:39 AM, Bob Koehler wrote:
> >> In
> >> artem<brakozi...@gmail.com> writes:
> >>> It is of course possible to support XP and run the same code on XP, Vista
> >>> and 7. There is a choice between running on XP or using some useful
> >>> Vista/W7
> >>> specific extensions. I have chosen the second thinking that XP is obsolete.
>
> >> The only systems we have running 7 shipped with it. It's not yet
> >> widely adapted anywhere I know of.
>
> Says more about what you "know of" then anything else.
>
> >> Everyone is still runnning XP.
> >> Microsoft be damned.
>
> > Well said!
>
> Silly, I'd say.
>
> > W/XP has been running for years on my system. It works which is
> > more than can be said for most of its predecessors!
>
> In a few years W7 will have been running for years on my current laptop.
> And before that WinXP had been running for years on my previous laptop.
> So what ?
>
> And what has the predecessors to WinXP to do with W7 !?
> Every sold PC for about a half to a year back was shipped with W7.
> And since half a year back, WinXP isn't even shipped as an option.
> And many/most PC's are replaced withing 3-4 years anyway...
Windows 7 as non-negotiable factory-installed OS may apply to the high
street PC market and to low volume users, but the corporate market
(where the VMS users used to be) is a different thing (as is the
"embedded" market in things like cash tills, fuel pumps, medical
instruments, testgear, automation equipment, etc).
In the corporate and embedded markets, nobody gives a monkeys what's
being shipped by default from the factory, because new kit gets
(re-)imaged with the local standard build before it's deployed.
Afaict, Vista hardly existed in the corporate or embedded markets, and
I personally haven't seen much sign that W7 is catching on any faster.
All a bit academic anyway because I assume the target hardware for a
typical Alpha emulator is eventually a server box, where Windows XP
was never relevant; they'd be running Windows Server 2003 or to a
lesser extent Windows 2008, maybe. Or for customers with clue, some
suitably customised and hardened flavour of Linux. But I'd be rather
interested in what kind of business logic leads to Windows 7 as a host
OS for an Alpha emulator, except for anything other than a short term
trial.
Tom Wade
> If you wanted to attract as much people as possible to a product, on which system would you choose to release first?
Speaking purely as someone who has extensive VMS knowledge, a little Windows ability and *zero*
knowledge of (or wish to know about) MACs or (especially) Unix systems, my ideal emulator would look
like this:
It is shipped as a CD image, which I can burn. I then take an old PC with no operating system on
it, and boot it from this image. The image sets up a partition on the hard drive and loads itself
onto it, leaving the rest of the disk available for VMS to use. When I reboot the PC from this new
partition, it comes up with the ">>> " prompt, and it is then up to me to load a VMS CD and install
it on the other partition, and set the appropriate console variables to boot VMS.
I don't care what operating system it has been developed on, as long as it ships with the product,
and I don't have to see or maintain it (I imagine for licensing reasons it will be some free variant
of Unix in single-application mode that boots and runs the emulator).
That way it transparently makes a cheap PC without and Windows (or other) license appear to be a VAX
(or Alpha). I would also imagine the host operating system would be just enough to run the
emulator, and therefore would offer minimal overhead, as opposed to one that requires extensive
'hardening'.
Now *that* would be a very interesting way to run an emulator. Otherwise, I would prefer to get a
real alpha.
Tom Wade
John Wallace
Very reasonable request. What you describe can be provided by a "Linux
Live CD" which includes a basic bootable Linux and some appropriately
minimal subset of tools as needed to manage the OS and the emulator,
and in your particular case an installation procedure to install the
required data to the local hard drive rather than the booted CD (or
USB stick or whatever).
Putting to one side the "local install" part, there are many of these
Live Linux things which exist already. I haven't built one myself
(yet) but I am told it's not that difficult to do, and I can confirm
from personal experience of various flavours of them that on any
reasonably recent PC they are not difficult for users to use. They
vary from trial version of a full Linux to various application-
specific things such as "gparted" (a partition editor on a bootable
disk, which will move, resize, whatever, various kinds of disk
partition).
So, it should hopefully be relatively simple for someone with the
relevant skills to build the generic bit, and probably not that
difficult for someone to do the "copy (hidden) OS and emulator to
local hard drive".
Or it could be relatively simple, IFF these emulators were built for
Linux as well as (instead of?) Window boxes.
There must be something missing from this picture.
VAXman-
>On Apr 6, 11:38=A0am, Tom Wade <nos...@tomwade.eu> wrote:
>> > If you wanted to attract as much people as possible to a product, on wh=
>ich system would you choose to release first?
>>
>ows ability and *zero*
>> knowledge of (or wish to know about) MACs or (especially) Unix systems, m=
>y ideal emulator would look
>> like this:
>>
>ith no operating system on
>hard drive and loads itself
> reboot the PC from this new
> load a VMS CD and install
>oot VMS.
>>
>> I don't care what operating system it has been developed on, as long as i=
>t ships with the product,
>t will be some free variant
>> of Unix in single-application mode that boots and runs the emulator).
>>
> license appear to be a VAX
>st enough to run the
>hat requires extensive
>> 'hardening'.
>>
>se, I would prefer to get a
>> real alpha.
>>
>> Tom Wade
>
>Very reasonable request. What you describe can be provided by a "Linux
>Live CD" which includes a basic bootable Linux and some appropriately
>minimal subset of tools as needed to manage the OS and the emulator,
>and in your particular case an installation procedure to install the
>required data to the local hard drive rather than the booted CD (or
>USB stick or whatever).
>
>Putting to one side the "local install" part, there are many of these
>Live Linux things which exist already. I haven't built one myself
>(yet) but I am told it's not that difficult to do, and I can confirm
>from personal experience of various flavours of them that on any
>reasonably recent PC they are not difficult for users to use. They
>vary from trial version of a full Linux to various application-
>specific things such as "gparted" (a partition editor on a bootable
>disk, which will move, resize, whatever, various kinds of disk
>partition).
>
>So, it should hopefully be relatively simple for someone with the
>relevant skills to build the generic bit, and probably not that
>difficult for someone to do the "copy (hidden) OS and emulator to
>local hard drive".
I keep a "live" on a USB stick and a SD memory card as well as on a CD.
>Or it could be relatively simple, IFF these emulators were built for
>Linux as well as (instead of?) Window boxes.
You need a MUCH LARGER font for that IFF. ;)
I've installed SimH on linux and Mac and when it's running to emulate a
VAX, the rest of the system is nary usable. In most of the cases, these
emulators are being sold to replace aging VAX hardware. I don't believe
that such a system would also need to run Minesweeper and Solitaire! A
most reasonalble request from Tom and those developing these emulations
would be wise to heed this request.
Bob Koehler
>
> I don't care what operating system it has been developed on, as long as it ships with the product,
> and I don't have to see or maintain it (I imagine for licensing reasons it will be some free variant
> of Unix in single-application mode that boots and runs the emulator).
I do care, and I think someone is working on this: an emulator that
runs on top of a stripped down real-time kernel. IIRC, I heard about
this recently, but I don't recall any details.
Michael Unger
Many years ago -- perhaps at an HP "TUD" event, I don't remember -- I
talked to a local Charon-VAX reseller and asked why that emulator has
been built to run as an application on Windows. He told me that the most
significant reason was the availability of device drivers for a lot of
hardware components; otherwise the emulator had to be limited to run on
a _very_ small set of certified hardware components. Well, this has been
true for OpenVMS for quite some decades ...
But different from VAX and Alpha hardware PC components are usually
available for just a few months if at all.
Michael
John Wallace
If you search this group for posts referencing QNX (an RT OS) you will
find some posts from almost exactly a year ago talking about how one
of the early/well-known commercial VAX emulators is available on QNX,
but in general it seems to be a well kept secret.
John Wallace
wrote:
Lack of Linux drivers for commodity hardware may have been a problem
five or ten years ago, but I don't think it's much of an issue these
days.
And what would a VMS system want an obscure hardware/driver combo for
anyway? It's not as though most VMS systems talked to obscure
hardware, and for those that did have obscure hardware, it's not
likely that commodity PC hardware has much to bring to the table in
terms of replacing things like a DR11(W) or an A->D converter or
whatever.
However if the once-ubiquitous DR11W is actually of interest, various
companies make DR11W lookalikes, and they usually come with drivers
for various OSes, Linux included. Wouldn't want to risk any DR11W-
lookalike-based application under Windows though. Whatever the board
vendors may say about the availability of Windows drivers, there is
just too much risk of the application (or even the driver) being
blocked for an extended period at an inconvenient point, which may
lead to Bad Things in time-critical applications. A properly
configured Linux has less of a problem with that kind of thing.
Bob Koehler
>
> And what would a VMS system want an obscure hardware/driver combo for
> anyway? It's not as though most VMS systems talked to obscure
> hardware, and for those that did have obscure hardware, it's not
> likely that commodity PC hardware has much to bring to the table in
> terms of replacing things like a DR11(W) or an A->D converter or
> whatever.
Speek for yourself. Custom and obscure hardware was the primary use
we had for VMS systems for many years.
> However if the once-ubiquitous DR11W is actually of interest, various
> companies make DR11W lookalikes, and they usually come with drivers
> for various OSes, Linux included. Wouldn't want to risk any DR11W-
> lookalike-based application under Windows though. Whatever the board
> vendors may say about the availability of Windows drivers, there is
> just too much risk of the application (or even the driver) being
> blocked for an extended period at an inconvenient point, which may
> lead to Bad Things in time-critical applications. A properly
> configured Linux has less of a problem with that kind of thing.
DR11-W, DRV11-W, DR11-B, DR11-C (most of which are emulated by todays
DR11W lookalikes), several custom UNIBUX boards, custom hardware
sitting on MASSBUS, custom hardware connecting directly to UNIBUS,
...
All of which I'd much rather try on QNX than Windows or Linux, if I
was in that position now. We were working with custom device drivers
for VMS for all the above, and I'd say a writing a device driver for
QNX, or providing a direct path from a VMS driver through QNX, sounds
like the approach I'd prefer.
Some VAX emulators on Windows will provide a direct path from VMS to
hardware for such things as those DR11W emulators, but that doesn't
stop Windows from up and deciding it's got something better to do for
just a bit too long.
John Wallace
Koehler) wrote:
I guess the ubiquitousness of "weird hardware" (for some definition of
weird) depends on your background. I do realise there was a lot of it
about, but there were also a lot of VMS customers who would be
perfectly happy with not much more than disk and network.
I'm not sure what the licence arrangements are with these QNX-based
systems (perhaps someone will enlighten us shortly). If an ordinary
QNX developer/user had bought QNX, then yes writing your own device
would be entirely possible and legitimate. If the system is sold cheap
with a reduced functionality QNX bundle, then who knows.
I know what the licence arrangements are for Linux, I've written
device drivers for UNIX and Linux (and VAXELN, and maybe VxWorks a
long time ago), but not QNX, though I did once have their "OS+browser
on a floppy" demo.
I haven't seen any point writing device drivers for Windows for the
kind of RT stuff I've been doing. As you say, Windows has its own
ideas about what's important, and they may not match the expectations
of the folk running the VMS system. Unnecessarily introducing that
kind of Window box unpredictability into a VMS system (emulation)
seems like a step backwards to me, whatever the pointy headed bosses
and IT people may think.
Stanley F. Quayle
early version of CHARON-VAX, ported it to QNX, and sells the system as
NuVAX (see the end of http://www.stanq.com/charon-vax.html for
information). The NuVAX system comes with a server, not as a piece of
software. But you can get your favorite DRW-11 cards as PCI cards.
And it'll drive a Q-bus rack of "magic" cards (DRPI, wire-wrapped
stuff, etc.).
Stromasys (the makers of CHARON products) has recently come out with
an Alpha emulator that is hosted under Linux. There's some reasons
why:
* Complete control over the underlying OS
* The expense of chasing each new Windows release
* Customers want it
When I first started selling CHARON-VAX , people wanted it because it
ran on Windows. They could tell management that they "converted" to
Windows.
This less important now. What drives a lot of conversions now is that
customers want to move away from proprietary hardware -- which is what
DEC/Compaq/HP-VAXen and Alphas really are.
[Shameless Plug Alert (TM) -- I am a CHARON reseller]
Bob Koehler
>
> I haven't seen any point writing device drivers for Windows for the
> kind of RT stuff I've been doing. As you say, Windows has its own
> ideas about what's important, and they may not match the expectations
> of the folk running the VMS system. Unnecessarily introducing that
> kind of Window box unpredictability into a VMS system (emulation)
> seems like a step backwards to me, whatever the pointy headed bosses
> and IT people may think.
I suspect Linux is better at this than Windows (mostly because the
data I've seen for Windows is so much more horrible than any other
SO I've seen), but Linux wasn't really designed for hard real-time,
either. Although Linus has allowed some real-time changes into the
kernel, it's perfectly capable of going off and doing it's own thing,
too.
If the QNX that the emulator is shipping on isn't full fledged, I'd
get emulator vendor and QNX vendor on the phone and see what I could
do to licence them both for any real-time solution.
ChrisQ
>
> I suspect Linux is better at this than Windows (mostly because the
> data I've seen for Windows is so much more horrible than any other
> SO I've seen), but Linux wasn't really designed for hard real-time,
> either. Although Linus has allowed some real-time changes into the
> kernel, it's perfectly capable of going off and doing it's own thing,
> too.
>
> If the QNX that the emulator is shipping on isn't full fledged, I'd
> get emulator vendor and QNX vendor on the phone and see what I could
> do to licence them both for any real-time solution.
>
Though it may be considered snake oil here, you could run it on Solaris,
which is configurable for a fully preamptive kernel. You don't have to
get it from Sun either, as there's the Open Solaris project:
http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/Main/
Runs on x86 and sparc, so you even have choice of hardware platform...
Regards,
Chris
Robert Boers
> It was I that mentioned QNX long ago. The Logical Company licensed an
> early version of CHARON-VAX, ported it to QNX, and sells the system as
> NuVAX (see the end of http://www.stanq.com/charon-vax.html for
> information). The NuVAX system comes with a server, not as a piece of
> software. But you can get your favorite DRW-11 cards as PCI cards.
> And it'll drive a Q-bus rack of "magic" cards (DRPI, wire-wrapped
> stuff, etc.).
Actually, we ported CHARON-VAX to QNX, we provide only the run-time
system to The Logical Company. We also use it ourselves for various
projects. The porting project was called MIKADO, HP published an article
about it in the VMS Technical journal:
http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/journal/
Robert
Stromasys SA
Bob Koehler
>
> Though it may be considered snake oil here, you could run it on Solaris,
> which is configurable for a fully preamptive kernel. You don't have to
> get it from Sun either, as there's the Open Solaris project:
While Solaris does have features for dealing with real-time that the
original UNIX kernel never thought of, folks who use it insist on
conditions, such as no network traffic be allowed during real-time.
So for me, it's still not good enough.
Paul Sture
ChrisQ <me...@devnull.com> wrote:
I looked at OpenSolaris a few weeks ago and it told me that I needed to
register to be eligible for software updates. When I tried to do that
it redirected me to an Oracle sign-up, and it took about a week to get
my sign-up confirmation email. That simply landed me back at the Oracle
ome page, which wasn't exactly helpful.
What's the latest position with OpenSolaris?
--
Paul Sture
Paul Sture
VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> I've installed SimH on linux and Mac and when it's running to emulate a
> VAX, the rest of the system is nary usable. In most of the cases, these
> emulators are being sold to replace aging VAX hardware. I don't believe
> that such a system would also need to run Minesweeper and Solitaire! A
> most reasonalble request from Tom and those developing these emulations
> would be wise to heed this request.
FreeAXP seems to be not too bad on a dual core system. I established a
shadow copy of my 18GB AXP system disk (across 2 separate SATA disks)
last week and didn't notice a big performance hit on other stuff I was
doing. Yes, the one core was at 100% CPU utilisation...
I fear that some folks will be disappointed by the I/O performance /
reliability combinations of the various Linux file systems under heavy
I/O conditions though.
--
Paul Sture
Paul Sture
<4972a462-e864-455b...@f2g2000yqf.googlegroups.com>,
John Wallace <johnwa...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Very reasonable request. What you describe can be provided by a "Linux
> Live CD" which includes a basic bootable Linux and some appropriately
> minimal subset of tools as needed to manage the OS and the emulator,
> and in your particular case an installation procedure to install the
> required data to the local hard drive rather than the booted CD (or
> USB stick or whatever).
>
> Putting to one side the "local install" part, there are many of these
> Live Linux things which exist already. I haven't built one myself
> (yet) but I am told it's not that difficult to do, and I can confirm
> from personal experience of various flavours of them that on any
> reasonably recent PC they are not difficult for users to use. They
> vary from trial version of a full Linux to various application-
> specific things such as "gparted" (a partition editor on a bootable
> disk, which will move, resize, whatever, various kinds of disk
> partition).
>
> So, it should hopefully be relatively simple for someone with the
> relevant skills to build the generic bit, and probably not that
> difficult for someone to do the "copy (hidden) OS and emulator to
> local hard drive".
>
> Or it could be relatively simple, IFF these emulators were built for
> Linux as well as (instead of?) Window boxes.
>
> There must be something missing from this picture.
When I read Tom's post it occurred to me that it shouldn't be too hard
to do, although chopping bits out of any given Live CD to achieve a
minimum config might inadvertently restrict the hardware it could be run
on.
At the present time, a Live CD + SIMH + base VAX/VMS V7.3 + layered
products + base Freeware (zip, unzip et al) already installed is
theoretically within my reach, except I'd want authorization in writing
from HP to distribute their binaries*. Oh, and there's the patch
situation too.
* but not the Hobbyist licenses to go with them. I don't want to get
into that.
--
Paul Sture
Martin Vorlaender
> I looked at OpenSolaris a few weeks ago and it told me that I needed to
> register to be eligible for software updates. When I tried to do that
> it redirected me to an Oracle sign-up, and it took about a week to get
> my sign-up confirmation email. That simply landed me back at the Oracle
> ome page, which wasn't exactly helpful.
>
> What's the latest position with OpenSolaris?
When Oracle wanted to commercialize it, OpenIndiana was born.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSolaris
cu,
Martin
--
One OS to rule them all | Martin Vorlaender | OpenVMS rules!
One OS to find them | work: m...@pdv-systeme.de
One OS to bring them all | http://vms.pdv-systeme.de/users/martinv/
And in the Darkness bind them.| home: martin.v...@t-online.de
John Wallace
Koehler) wrote:
> In article <PV4np.18995$rF.12...@newsfe12.ams2>, ChrisQ <m...@devnull.com> writes:
>
> > Though it may be considered snake oil here, you could run it on Solaris,
> > which is configurable for a fully preamptive kernel. You don't have to
> > get it from Sun either, as there's the Open Solaris project:
>
> While Solaris does have features for dealing with real-time that the
> original UNIX kernel never thought of, folks who use it insist on
> conditions, such as no network traffic be allowed during real-time.
>
> So for me, it's still not good enough.
For those who haven't already done so, and at the risk of getting
repetitive, I really would recommend anybody interested in this kind
of thing take a quick look at the RT [1] facilities freely available
from OpenSuse (they may be available in other Linuxes too, but with
OpenSuSe they come nicely packaged).
"No network traffic" is asking a bit much, in the real world.
The "RT" app I run under Suse is a serial data collection front end
which needs to keep up with four or more serial (async) channels at
500kbits or so, with basically 100% utilisation and no meaningful
packet formatting or flow control or error correction ("protocol" spec
not negotiable). Received data is packetised, timestamped, and
forwarded via IP to another box for further analysis and recording. We
only found one vendor whose card could get close on paper, and under
Windows the performance was abysmal, data dropped every few tens of
seconds, on a modern reasonably high spec PC. With an RT Suse, we left
it gathering data for days (known data so we could spot any data loss)
and didn't see any dropped data.
OpenSuse is a traditional Linux so there's no need to register with
anybody, and it's a free download, etc. There are other allegedly RT-
capable Linuxes (e.g. MontaVista and friends?) but despite being GPL
software it seems to be very difficult to get hold of some of them,
which is partly how I ended up at OpenSuse.
I have a nice cheat sheet somewhere documenting the OpenSuse configure
+rebuild process (it's not something I do frequently) but it's at work
and I'm not. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week...
There are some snags with SuSe though. (1) Knowing how to spell it,
wrt capitalization (2) Knowing how to pronounce it (3) the Open isn't
completely silent (unlike with OpenVMS)
[1] Definitions of RT vary, but imho if VMS could do it, Suse is at
least worth a look - but obviously it's not VMS. If the VMSness is
important, running an RT front end with part or all of the app under
an emulator running VMS may help with that. Moving completely off VMS
to a real RTOS is not going to be trivial for any non-trivial
application.
John Wallace
> In article <00AAD7C4.51127...@SendSpamHere.ORG>,
There are a variety of schedulers available for Linux. Different kinds
of workload may benefit from different kinds of scheduler.
At least one of the schedulers is called the "completely fair
scheduler", which isn't the greatest of names, as different systems/
people may have different definitions of what "fair" means...
Same goes for filesystems; lots to choose from.
Some people may still be unable to find one (scheduler or filesystem)
that suits a specific need - but if their need is great enough, they
have the option to build what they need (or pay for someone to build
it).
It's never going to be VMS though.
Paul Sture
"Martin Vorlaender" <m...@pdv-systeme.de> wrote:
> Paul Sture <paul....@sture.ch> wrote:
> > I looked at OpenSolaris a few weeks ago and it told me that I needed to
> > register to be eligible for software updates. When I tried to do that
> > it redirected me to an Oracle sign-up, and it took about a week to get
> > my sign-up confirmation email. That simply landed me back at the Oracle
> > ome page, which wasn't exactly helpful.
> >
> > What's the latest position with OpenSolaris?
>
> When Oracle wanted to commercialize it, OpenIndiana was born.
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSolaris
>
Thanks for the pointer.
--
Paul Sture
Tom Wade
> When I read Tom's post it occurred to me that it shouldn't be too hard
> to do, although chopping bits out of any given Live CD to achieve a
> minimum config might inadvertently restrict the hardware it could be run
> on.
True, but one can err on the safe side. Things like compilers and applications normally bundled
with the O/S would not be needed. No need to cut down on any drivers. I was thinking more of the
'single-user' mode that I've seen some Unix variants use.
> At the present time, a Live CD + SIMH + base VAX/VMS V7.3 + layered
> products + base Freeware (zip, unzip et al) already installed is
> theoretically within my reach, except I'd want authorization in writing
> from HP to distribute their binaries*. Oh, and there's the patch
> situation too.
Actually, I was not suggesting going this far. Including VMS in the distribution would certainly be
problematic for HP, and in any case wouldn't be required. I just wanted enough to make a PC box
look like a bare metal VAX/Alpha without having to install, configure or maintain an underlying
Unix/Windows/Mach subsystem. If I were getting a real VAX or Alpha, I'd have to install VMS myself
anyway, so that is a perfectly natural task to leave to the user (and arguably something that anyone
wanting to be a VMS Admin should want to learn).
Tom Wade
ChrisQ
To be honest, if I wanted to vms, I would run it on Alpha. There's still
plenty of hardware around and will be for years, perhaps decades. Not
like it's unreliable or needs spares either. I ran my last Alpha box
for over ten years almost continuously and without failure, other than a
hard drive or two. To those who wibble on about "support", there is
loads of systems knowledge around, without paying hp prices.
An emulator will always be second best compromise...
Regards,
Chris
Dave McGuire
>> How many Alpha Emulators does the world need?
>
> As long as I have a working Alpha, NONE!
A man after my own heart. :)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Paul Sture
Tom Wade <nos...@tomwade.eu> wrote:
> > When I read Tom's post it occurred to me that it shouldn't be too hard
> > to do, although chopping bits out of any given Live CD to achieve a
> > minimum config might inadvertently restrict the hardware it could be run
> > on.
>
> True, but one can err on the safe side. Things like compilers and
> applications normally bundled
> with the O/S would not be needed. No need to cut down on any drivers. I was
> thinking more of the
> 'single-user' mode that I've seen some Unix variants use.
OK, except that a Ubuntu security patch a few weeks ago triggered VMware
to recompile bits of itself. I'm wondering how safe it is to unbundle
the compiler environment.
> > At the present time, a Live CD + SIMH + base VAX/VMS V7.3 + layered
> > products + base Freeware (zip, unzip et al) already installed is
> > theoretically within my reach, except I'd want authorization in writing
> > from HP to distribute their binaries*. Oh, and there's the patch
> > situation too.
>
> Actually, I was not suggesting going this far. Including VMS in the
> distribution would certainly be problematic for HP, and in any case wouldn't
> be required. I just wanted enough to make a PC box look like a bare metal
> VAX/Alpha without having to install, configure or maintain an underlying
> Unix/Windows/Mach subsystem. If I were getting a real VAX or Alpha, I'd
> have to install VMS myself anyway, so that is a perfectly natural task to
> leave to the user (and arguably something that anyone wanting to be a VMS
> Admin should want to learn).
I was thinking along the lines of a Live CD where you could boot VMS,
play with it and optionally install it. I think the pain I originally
had getting stuff into a SIMH instance was at the back of my mind.
You are correct that someone wanting to be a VMS admin wouldn't have a
problem with installing from scratch.
--
Paul Sture
artem
- bug fixes
- added support of Windows XP (it was win7, no linux yet, sorry)
- added support of DS10 abd ES40 systems (it was DS20).
Please check http://emuvm.com.
VAXman-
>Just releaseed a new version 1.0.3. Main changes are:
>- bug fixes
>- added support of Windows XP (it was win7, no linux yet, sorry)
What is free about WEENDOZE? Save for the viruses and malware that it runs
so well?
Let me know when it will be free and will run on Linux.
Paul Sture
<56810bbc-e119-475b...@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com
>,
artem <brako...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Just releaseed a new version 1.0.3. Main changes are:
> - bug fixes
> - added support of Windows XP (it was win7, no linux yet, sorry)
> - added support of DS10 abd ES40 systems (it was DS20).
Thanks for listening to the comments made here in response to your
previous announcement.
On the XP front I recently saw a presentation about corporate upgrade
and because they started planning in 2009, Windows XP was chosen, as
Windows 7 hadn't been released at the time. Vista was to be avoided,
and W7's release date was 22 October 2009. Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Microsoft_Windows
> Please check http://emuvm.com.
Another vote for Linux please, when you are ready ;.)
--
Paul Sture
MG
This is definitely one of the best AXP emulators yet! I'm very
grateful, thank you very much.
- MG
VAXman-
It'll never be any good as long as it only runs on WEENDOZE.
Freedom on the Oceans
> In article <4dc562a3$0$81474$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>, MG
> <marc...@SPAMxs4all.nl> writes:
> >On 6-5-2011 22:04, artem wrote:
> >> Just releaseed a new version 1.0.3. Main changes are:
> >> - bug fixes
> >> - added support of Windows XP (it was win7, no linux yet, sorry)
> >> - added support of DS10 abd ES40 systems (it was DS20).
> >>
> >> Please check http://emuvm.com.
> >
> >This is definitely one of the best AXP emulators yet! I'm very
> >grateful, thank you very much.
>
> It'll never be any good as long as it only runs on WEENDOZE.
It's very hard to port between different architectures, especially on
GUIs. He can look at a rewrite with a cross-platform GUI kit, it would
make his life a lot easier.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens
John Wallace
wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-05-07 at 15:33 +0000, VAXm...@SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> > In article <4dc562a3$0$81474$e4fe5...@news.xs4all.nl>, MG
> > <marcog...@SPAMxs4all.nl> writes:
> > >On 6-5-2011 22:04, artem wrote:
> > >> Just releaseed a new version 1.0.3. Main changes are:
> > >> - bug fixes
> > >> - added support of Windows XP (it was win7, no linux yet, sorry)
> > >> - added support of DS10 abd ES40 systems (it was DS20).
>
>
> > >This is definitely one of the best AXP emulators yet! I'm very
> > >grateful, thank you very much.
>
> > It'll never be any good as long as it only runs on WEENDOZE.
>
> It's very hard to port between different architectures, especially on
> GUIs. He can look at a rewrite with a cross-platform GUI kit, it would
> make his life a lot easier.
> --
> Tactical Nuclear Kittens
"It's very hard to port between different architectures"
It can be much much harder if you don't start with that in mind, e.g.
if for some reason the Wintel mentality has taken hold and Win32
or .NET or whatever are built in.
A platform-independent GUI is nice for something that needs to look
shiny and modern but in something like an Alpha emulator it may be
that a platform-independent OS interface layer is equally important.
If any kernel mode code is involved, platform indepence doesn't really
exist, although an application specific subset for a given application
may exist.
VAXman-
>On Sat, 2011-05-07 at 15:33 +0000, VAX...@SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>> In article <4dc562a3$0$81474$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>, MG
>> <marc...@SPAMxs4all.nl> writes:
>> >On 6-5-2011 22:04, artem wrote:
>> >> Just releaseed a new version 1.0.3. Main changes are:
>> >> - bug fixes
>> >> - added support of Windows XP (it was win7, no linux yet, sorry)
>> >> - added support of DS10 abd ES40 systems (it was DS20).
>> >>
>> >> Please check http://emuvm.com.
>> >
>> >This is definitely one of the best AXP emulators yet! I'm very
>> >grateful, thank you very much.
>> It'll never be any good as long as it only runs on WEENDOZE.=20
>
>It's very hard to port between different architectures, especially on
>GUIs. He can look at a rewrite with a cross-platform GUI kit, it would
>make his life a lot easier.
What's GUI about an Alpha emulator? I remember running SimH VAX emulation
on Linux and there wasn't anything GUI about it as I recall.
John Wallace
> In article <2alg98-1pn....@nntp.local.net>, Freedom on the Oceans <alex.bu...@munted.org.uk> writes:
>
>
>
> >On Sat, 2011-05-07 at 15:33 +0000, VAXm...@SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
> >> In article <4dc562a3$0$81474$e4fe5...@news.xs4all.nl>, MG
> >> >On 6-5-2011 22:04, artem wrote:
> >> >> Just releaseed a new version 1.0.3. Main changes are:
> >> >> - bug fixes
> >> >> - added support of Windows XP (it was win7, no linux yet, sorry)
> >> >> - added support of DS10 abd ES40 systems (it was DS20).
>
>
> >> >This is definitely one of the best AXP emulators yet! I'm very
> >> >grateful, thank you very much.
> >>=20
> >> It'll never be any good as long as it only runs on WEENDOZE.=20
>
> >It's very hard to port between different architectures, especially on
> >GUIs. He can look at a rewrite with a cross-platform GUI kit, it would
> >make his life a lot easier.
>
> What's GUI about an Alpha emulator? I remember running SimH VAX emulation
> on Linux and there wasn't anything GUI about it as I recall.
>
> --
> VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
>
> All your spirit rack abuses, come to haunt you back by day.
> All your Byzantine excuses, given time, given you away.
"What's GUI about an Alpha emulator? "
Good question. As I haven't seen the specific product under discussion
in this thread, I don't know if it has been (mis-)designed to require
the use of a GUI, so I can only make general comments about platform
independence (a subject close to my heart since, oh, the mid 1980s).
You'd be amazed (or perhaps you might not) about what is considered
important by today's PHBs and certified Microsoft-dependent folk (and
indeed not just today's but those of ten years ago). E.g. in today's
software development/IDE world, home grown CLI-script-driven tools
often need to look as though they integrate with (say) Eclipse, even
though the effort spent in developing the pointy clicky integration
may never return a "profit" on that effort. This at roughly the same
time as the Windows people finally realise that Windows might be
better if it had a proper scripting language (PowerShell? Proper
scripting language?).
Freedom on the Oceans
> >It's very hard to port between different architectures, especially on
> >GUIs. He can look at a rewrite with a cross-platform GUI kit, it
> would
> >make his life a lot easier.
>
> What's GUI about an Alpha emulator? I remember running SimH VAX
> emulation on Linux and there wasn't anything GUI about it as I
> recall.
You're right, simH is a console only application. But on Linux, there is
the ES40 emulator which can also pop up a X window.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens
JF Mezei
MacOS on an intel OS-X machine. This is a GUI emulator. It not only has
GUI configuration, but when you start the emulator, it pops a window up
which emulates a Mac's GUI display.
For VMS this is not much use since it is natively a character cell
console, so for booting purposes, you just need a character cell interface.
Art
The "emulator" isn't popping up an X window, it's the VMS o/s, no?
Cheers,
Art
--
"Cheer up ... things could get worse"
So he did ... and they did!
VAXman-
>On Sun, 2011-05-08 at 13:20 +0000, VAX...@SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:
>> >It's very hard to port between different architectures, especially on
>> >GUIs. He can look at a rewrite with a cross-platform GUI kit, it
>> would
>> >make his life a lot easier.
>> What's GUI about an Alpha emulator? I remember running SimH VAX
>> emulation on Linux and there wasn't anything GUI about it as I
>
>You're right, simH is a console only application. But on Linux, there is
I "popped" up X window displays with SimH, as well as with real VMS boxes,
on my Linux machine. I didn't need anything special to do this.
artem
The VM is written in C++ with portability in mind.
The GUI is written in dot net. This is a relatively simple application. The GUI creates a configuration file, which is passed as an argument to the virtual machine. You can launch the virtual machine without the GUI from the command line and pass the configuration file as an argument. You can check out the text contents of the configuration files. I attempted to make them user-friendly.
Linux port can at first instance do without the user interface, taking into account that most Linux folks will not feel uncomfortable about command line.
The launcher performs tasks like enumerating network devices in the host system to let the user choose from them. This kind of tasks is not portable because it is highly dependent on the host OS. So, it is unclear how portable can lancher be.
Moreover, the dotnet launcher can be ported to Mono, which is advanced enough, I believe. Thus, dotnet is not as unportable as it may seem.
Anyway, I am open to suggestions about technologies that can be used to create a portable GUI for an emulator like AlphaVM.
Simon Clubley
>
> Anyway, I am open to suggestions about technologies that can be used to
> create a portable GUI for an emulator like AlphaVM.
What about GTK ?
I use it on Linux, but according to the GTK website, it also runs on Windows
and Mac OS X.
Simon.
--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
artem
Albrecht Schlosser
> Anyway, I am open to suggestions about technologies that can be used
> to create a portable GUI for an emulator like AlphaVM.
Take a look at FLTK <http://www.fltk.org/>
"FLTK (pronounced "fulltick") is a cross-platform C++ GUI toolkit for
UNIX®/Linux® (X11), Microsoft® Windows®, and MacOS® X. FLTK provides
modern GUI functionality ... FLTK is designed to be small and modular
enough to be statically linked, but works fine as a shared library.
FLTK also includes an excellent UI builder called FLUID that can be
used to create applications in minutes."
---
Since you are using C++ anyway, this would be a possible choice.
Albrecht
P.S. I apologize if this will eventually be a double post. My primary
news server seems to be down right now, sending it again.
Albrecht Schlosser
> Anyway, I am open to suggestions about technologies that can be used to create a portable GUI for an emulator like AlphaVM.
Take a look at FLTK <http://www.fltk.org/>
artem
Linux release notes:
• There is no launcher available yet. The VM must be launched manually from the command line. A configuration file must be provided by the user. The user manual contains a configuration file example (see the section about running from command line).
• There is no installation procedure yet. Just download the executable and run it. Run the executable as alphavm-free <config-file>.
• The VM has been tested with Debian 6.0.1a x64.
• The build is for x64. The x86 version is not yet tested. Please contact us if you are interested in x86 version.
• The disk and iso image files must be regular files.
• Ethernet PCAP emulation can be used only under root, or if the VM is setuid to root, or if the user has certain capabilities, like CAP_NET_RAW and CAP_NET_ADMIN. If the emulator fails to open network, it crashes with SIGSEGV when trying to access the PCAP.
• PUTTY terminals are not started automatically (which is normally done by the launcher). They must be started manually. Putty must be configured in RAW mode localhost:2000 and options LOCAL ECHO and LOCAL LINE EDITING set to FORCED OFF.
• There is no utility for cvreation of empty disk images. These can be downloaded from http://emuvm.com
Sprag
Great...except that it doesn't work at all on RHEL 6 :(
Segfaults instantly and ldd can't open it to get the library
dependencies. objdump says its truncated. Here's what I have:
$ ls -al alphavm_free-1-0-5-linux_x64.exe
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 bdwheele bdwheele 2847341 May 17 20:51
alphavm_free-1-0-5-linux_x64.exe
$ md5sum alphavm_free-1-0-5-linux_x64.exe
0a3e3d524277e7a8c793a050ca75cb26 alphavm_free-1-0-5-linux_x64.exe
The x86 version behaves similarly.
MG
> Great...except that it doesn't work at all on RHEL 6 :(
>
> Segfaults instantly and ldd can't open it to get the library
> dependencies. objdump says its truncated.
Same here, except my try was with Debian 5.0.8 x86-64.
- MG
artem
Sprag
> Sorry guys, something went wrong with copying/ftp. Now it should be fine.
It runs but I can't install vms because I can't get past the system
password entering thing when I use regular telnet to connect to the
emulator.
I couldn't get tru64 to install because of the same reason, but
messing with putty let me get to the install phase after I messed with
a bunch of settings. I'll try vms again in a few minutes.
You may consider using SO_REUSEADDR on the com sockets so restarting
the emulator while its in the TIME_WAIT state will let it continue
without dumping core.
It was pretty spiffy to see Tru64 again. Thanks, its pretty awesome.
Brian
artem
apt-get install putty
or something like that.
Use putty with "local line editing" and "local echo" set to forced off.
Thanks for the tip about the socket. I was playing with SO_LINGER, but it did not do it. It must indeed be SO_REUSEADDR. I will try it.