Running RT11 on Vaxen
will kranz
once every 4 years, and its about time. I know this is a PDP newsgroup
but there has been a fair amount of Vax stuff recently and this is
actually sort of on topic.
Its my understanding that the Vax-750 had some sort of compatibility
mode for RT11 (or is it generic 16 bit addressing)? Anyone know how to
access and or control this? My diagnoistics tapes and consol tapes
seem to be in RT11 format, not files11, although the home block
format string is "DECVMSEXCHNG". If I could run it as a PDP11
off the functional RL02 I might get further figuring out why the
RA80 doesn't work.
A bit further from PDP11s but of interest regarding this, what are
the following from consol tape?
BOOT58.EXE 02-20-85 23 blocks 14 start block
CI780 .BIN 02-20-85 36 blocks 37 start block
VMB .EXE 02-20-85 40 blocks 149 start block
If this is well covered somewhere a link would be great.
It seems to need a fair amount of this data from the
TU58 consol tape before it will attempt to do anything. The
recent comments about loading microcode patches was interesting.
Presumably thats what CI780.bin is but why 780???
>From other reading, I believe it ultimately loads VMB.exe but don't
know what this really is. Is this specific to early Vaxen
like the 750? Is the equivalent in ROM on the microvax?
Guess the other possibility is that the default state is a pdp11
with a Unibus, and it only becomes a Vax via VMB.exe?
Hints appreciated, Will
At 09:54 AM 05/05/05 -0400, Bill Pechter wrote (in part):
Original Thread Re: Does anyone here have an 11/60?
>The 8650 was a beautiful machine...
>
>'Course running full blown RT11 on the front end was nice... Running
>adventure from an RL pack during PM was kind of fun.
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Stuart Brook
> Its my understanding that the Vax-750 had some sort of
> compatibility mode for RT11 (or is it generic 16 bit addressing)?
> Anyone know how to access and or control this? My diagnoistics
> tapes and consol tapes seem to be in RT11 format, not files11,
> although the home block format string is "DECVMSEXCHNG". If I
> could run it as a PDP11 off the functional RL02 I might get further
> figuring out why the RA80 doesn't work.
What runs on VMS are two host packages
VAX-11/RSX which sets up the host resources to run non-priv RSX-11 task images so you can do task development and was commonly used for RSX-11S development.
VAX-11 RTEM which sets up the host resources to run RT-11 SJ software that doesn't touch hardware. Many parts of RT-11 were maintained for several years on RTEM.
Eric Smith
> Its my understanding that the Vax-750 had some sort of compatibility
> mode for RT11
The compatability mode is only for user-level -11 programs, and won't
run any normal -11 OS. Under VMS, there is a package to allow the
execution of RSX-11M binaries. BSD 4.x also had some games that used
the compatability mode.
> A bit further from PDP11s but of interest regarding this, what are
> the following from consol tape?
> BOOT58.EXE 02-20-85 23 blocks 14 start block
> CI780 .BIN 02-20-85 36 blocks 37 start block
> VMB .EXE 02-20-85 40 blocks 149 start block
> The
> recent comments about loading microcode patches was interesting.
> Presumably thats what CI780.bin is but why 780???
The name would suggest that CI780.BIN is the microcode not for a CPU,
but for a CI780, which is the SBI-to-CI interface used on a VAX 11/780.
Having never seen a CI750 or docs on it, I wouldn't really know, but
perhaps it runs the same microcode as the CI780. Presumably the point
in having the CI microcode on a boot tape is that it would enable you
to boot the OS from either an HSC or a VAX cluster.
But the CI780 microcode is nothing at all like the microcode for
any VAX CPU, so unless you actually have a CI interface, it won't
do anything for you.
Eric
John Santos
> On Fri, 06 May 2005 11:04:40 -0400, will kranz wrote:
>
> > Its my understanding that the Vax-750 had some sort of
> > compatibility mode for RT11 (or is it generic 16 bit addressing)?
> > Anyone know how to access and or control this? My diagnoistics
> > tapes and consol tapes seem to be in RT11 format, not files11,
> > although the home block format string is "DECVMSEXCHNG". If I
> > could run it as a PDP11 off the functional RL02 I might get further
> > figuring out why the RA80 doesn't work.
>
> What runs on VMS are two host packages
>
> VAX-11/RSX which sets up the host resources to run non-priv
> RSX-11 task images so you can do task development and was commonly
> used for RSX-11S development.
>
> VAX-11 RTEM which sets up the host resources to run RT-11 SJ
> software that doesn't touch hardware. Many parts of RT-11 were
> maintained for several years on RTEM.
For completeness' sake, there is/was also ROSS/V, which does the
same thing for RSTS/E user-mode programs.
VAX-11/RSX was a DEC product and now belongs to Mentec.
VAX-11 RTEM was also a DEC product, but I don't know what happened
to it.
ROSS/V is an EGH product.
--
John
paramucho
And for completeness completeness sake I did an RT-11 compatible AME
which I used to market as VRT -- we sold very few but I used for
development. It used my monitor sources, not the DEC code, and it
worked as an AME permitting RT-11 programs to be run directly IIRC.
The main advantages over RTEM were, (a) RTEM wasn't available when I
first did it, (b) it ran out of VMS directories, not an RT-11 logical
disk.
(I refashioned it ten years ago to provide the same kind of service
under the first version of my Windows PDP-11 emulator.)
chris...@postmaster.co.uk
For completeness completeness completeness sake, I developed something
very similar: basically an EMT handler that implemented a reasonable
subset of RT-11 system calls under RSX-11M or VAX-11/RSX. Again, it was
before the birth of RTEM. It enabled me to work on RT-11 projects
without booting all the users off our multiuser machine or burning too
much midnight oil. We didn't sell it, but I think it may be on a SIG
tape somewhere.
Chris
Douglas A. Gwyn
avaiable commercially from HCR of Toronto. We used it for
running ADVENTure and for MACRO-11/LINK-11 to support some
apps that would have been too costly to rewrite for Unix.
Johnny Billquist
> I have a Vax-750 that I periodically attempt to boot, something like
> once every 4 years, and its about time. I know this is a PDP newsgroup
> but there has been a fair amount of Vax stuff recently and this is
> actually sort of on topic.
Other have probably already answered all the questions you pose, but to
make a short stab at it anyway...
No, the VAX-11/750 cannot boot RT11. The VAX-11 machines have a PDP-11
compatibility mode, but that is for user mode programs only. No operating
system stuff is possible.
VMB is the boot program for VAXen, and microVAX have VMB in rom. The
11/750 is actually a special case, in that actually first loads a boot
block from the boot device (whatever disk) and then proceeds from there.
But VMB is still the normal boot path. However, things like 4.3BSD didn't
use VMB.
CI780 is the microcode for the CI-780 controller. I don't think the CI-750
used the same microcode, which makes it weird you should have, or need
that microcode on your 11/750.
CI is computer interconnect. A (for the time) fast communications channel
between clustered VAXen and disk controllers.
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: b...@update.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
William Pechter
IIRC the CI750 and CI780 were the same boards with a different bus interface... The same microcode could've been used.
Bill
Christopher Zach
and a pretty hot diagnostic system built into it, correct? I was able to
fix my RM80 (with the MASSBUS personality module) using the lights and
switches in there. It will pretty much tell you everything that's going on.
CZ
will kranz wrote:
> I have a Vax-750 that I periodically attempt to boot, something like
> once every 4 years, and its about time. I know this is a PDP newsgroup
> but there has been a fair amount of Vax stuff recently and this is
> actually sort of on topic.
>
> Its my understanding that the Vax-750 had some sort of compatibility
> mode for RT11 (or is it generic 16 bit addressing)? Anyone know how to
> access and or control this? My diagnoistics tapes and consol tapes
> seem to be in RT11 format, not files11, although the home block
> format string is "DECVMSEXCHNG". If I could run it as a PDP11
> off the functional RL02 I might get further figuring out why the
> RA80 doesn't work.
>
> A bit further from PDP11s but of interest regarding this, what are
> the following from consol tape?
> BOOT58.EXE 02-20-85 23 blocks 14 start block
> CI780 .BIN 02-20-85 36 blocks 37 start block
> VMB .EXE 02-20-85 40 blocks 149 start block
>
> If this is well covered somewhere a link would be great.
> It seems to need a fair amount of this data from the
> TU58 consol tape before it will attempt to do anything. The
> recent comments about loading microcode patches was interesting.
> Presumably thats what CI780.bin is but why 780???
>>From other reading, I believe it ultimately loads VMB.exe but don't
> know what this really is. Is this specific to early Vaxen
> like the 750? Is the equivalent in ROM on the microvax?
>
> Guess the other possibility is that the default state is a pdp11
> with a Unibus, and it only becomes a Vax via VMB.exe?
>
> Hints appreciated, Will
>
>
>
> At 09:54 AM 05/05/05 -0400, Bill Pechter wrote (in part):
> Original Thread Re: Does anyone here have an 11/60?
>
>
>>The 8650 was a beautiful machine...
>>
>>'Course running full blown RT11 on the front end was nice... Running
>>adventure from an RL pack during PM was kind of fun.
>
Carl Lowenstein
> From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAG...@null.net>
> Subject: Re: Running RT11 on Vaxen
> To: info-...@village.org
Yes, it was called RT/EMT (RT Emulator). We used it to support Fortran
on our 11/23 Unix systems, since RT11 Fortran was much advanced over
6th Ed Unix Fortran.
Somewhere in the PUPS archives is a copy of RT/EMT, which I donated to
the cause, Tim Shoppa transcribed, and Warren Toomey took care of the
remaining legalities.
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
clow...@ucsd.edu