OpenVMS 9.2/x86 - OpenGL and Windows?

[fswo...@gmail.com]

Folks,



While I am waiting for x86 community licenses from VMS software inc., does
OpenVMS for x86 support OpenGL or Vulkan for 3D animations/graphics and DEC
Windows?



Tim

[Chris Hanson]

I don't think it supports a graphical console at all, it asks you to
connect a serial terminal during installation. Though it also asks about
installing some DECwindows support so running X11 applications with a
remote display might be supported.

-- Chris

[Steven Schweda]

> I don't think it supports a graphical console at all, [...]

There's no graphics "hardware", for a console or anything else:

v87 $ show device g
%SYSTEM-W-NOSUCHDEV, no such device available

> [...] running X11 applications with a remote display might be
> supported.

The docs should reveal what's supported. It works for me:

v87 $ set display /node = proa /trans = tcpip
v87 $ mcr DECW$CLOCK.EXE
X Toolkit Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-Menu-Medium-R-Normal--*-120-*-*-P-*
-ISO8859-1" to type FontStruct

(_I_ can see it on my Mac.)

[Gary Sparkes]

Woah boy, Vulkan is definitely a hard no-go - the "newest" supported graphics board would be along the lines of the ATI Radeon 7500, which was released in 2001.

OpenGL did exist in some incarnations, and could possibly work if built on x86_64 with the old drivers/support, but unfortunately in the current V9.2 and E9.2-1 releases, VSI did *not* build the SYS$LDR:SYS$GHDRIVER.EXE image, so even with an ATI Radeon 7500 or 7000, there's no support for those cards.... currently, anyway. They did function on Itanium and Alpha to provide a graphical terminal that you could run DECwindows on as a local interface using phsyically connected keyboard and mouse.

SYS$LDR:SYS$GBDRIVER.EXE is also not present, so ELSA GLoria and PowerStorm cards aren't able to be supported/function either. Those are the only in-box drivers I recall that'd give you a working graphics system with the hope of OpenGL acceleration. Mind you - OpenGL from the late 90s/early 2000s. OpenGL 1.1 as of VMS 7.3, 8.3 had OpenGL 1.2

I note also that almost none of the OpenGL tools are built/provided in the E9.2-1 and V9.2 installs. So building existing OpenGL using software and utilizing it over remote X11 display would seem to be impossible currently, as well. All may not be lost, as I do recall HP at least doing some bugfixes and updates to OpenGL libraries and graphics support (no new cards) around the 2012-2013 timeframe. The GL directories under SYS$COMMON:DECW$INCLUDE are not present.

If GHDRIVER or GBDRIVER were supported/provided, I suspect a PCIe to PCI bridge with the appropriate card would result in a functional system for DECwindows/X11 currently.

I wonder if potentially open sourcing those, maybe even in just part - to provide some GPU support examples that worked on Alpha and Itanium for community expansion.... documentation on this area is very sparse to non-existant.... or just building them for side distribution, could be potentially possible.

The best hope, I fear, is that it's some VSI engineer's pet project, or some code gets released that people can tinker with.....

[Steven Schweda]

> [...] VSI did *not* build the SYS$LDR:SYS$GHDRIVER.EXE image, [...]

"SYS$LOADABLE_IMAGES:"?

V87 $ show logical SYS$LOADABLE_IMAGES
"SYS$LOADABLE_IMAGES" = "SYS$SYSROOT:[SYS$LDR]" (LNM$SYSTEM_TABLE)

But, as of E9.2-1, there's not much there:

V87 $ dire SYS$LOADABLE_IMAGES:SYS$G*DRIVER /date

Directory SYS$COMMON:[SYS$LDR]

SYS$GKDRIVER.EXE;1 -> /SYS$MD23108222540A/VMS$COMMON/SYS$LDR/SYS$GKDRIVER.EXE
18-APR-2023 22:26:01.11

Total of 1 file.

And the value of that is not immediately obvious:

V87 $ search sys$system:SYS$*CONFIG.DAT GKDRIVER
%SEARCH-I-NOMATCHES, no strings matched

[Gary Sparkes]

> SYS$GKDRIVER.EXE;1 -> /SYS$MD23108222540A/VMS$COMMON/SYS$LDR/SYS$GKDRIVER.EXE
> 18-APR-2023 22:26:01.11
>
> Total of 1 file.
>
> And the value of that is not immediately obvious:
>
> V87 $ search sys$system:SYS$*CONFIG.DAT GKDRIVER
> %SEARCH-I-NOMATCHES, no strings matched

That's the generic SCSI class driver. See Section 8.6: https://vmssoftware.com/docs/VSI_IO_REF.pdf

[Steven Schweda]

> That's the generic SCSI class driver. [...]

Ah. Thanks.