I was googleing about, and came across this. As far as I know at the moment, this is the only place you can find information about running Ultrix on SIMH’s MicroVAX II.
I don’t know if anyone cares about such an odd ball one, but I thought I’d throw it out…
Anyone interested in an early version of X11 and the DECWindows system will find it available here. You will need a local xserver to do this – I've tested with the old eXcursion for Windows server from DEC, but Cygwin should also work in Windows.
Do a full install of this OS (I used an ra90 disk instead of the ra81). You will need to use a simh binary with networking built in. Within Ultrix, use the command "netsetup install" to configure TCP/IP. Reboot Ultrix, log in, export your display to your Xserver, and start DECWindows with "dxsession &"
DECWindows is X11 based and is nearly the same here as it was on VMS. It has some nifty utility programs like a Notepad, a PostScript viewer, a File Manager and others. It reminds me of Windows 3.1. Pretty nice for 1990. Great online help system, too.
Ultrix was my first UNIX, so I have a real soft spot for it. I mean, who needs dynamic libraries, am I right? :^)
I've had good success running Ultrix 4.2, 4.3, and 4.5 on SIMH, all installed from CD-ROM images made with a simple dd dump of the original media. The problem I had to work around was that the CD media installer script doesn't support the simulated MSCP RRD40 drive.
Luckily the solution was pretty straight-forward. I posted about it on the TUHS mailing list in 2004, but in summary, it's possible to edit the 'install.1' script when booted from the install media in single user mode, and replace references to 'rz' SCSI disks with 'ra' MSCP disk names. Once edited, the install proceeds completely normally.
I got SIM-H on my ubuntu netbook and it runs fine.
There is an ULTRIX V4.5 version available and I got that one, created a SERIOUS virtual vax with four RA90 drives and a lot of freeware from around the net.
The ASUS netbook (aka as a ‘purse computer’) is a handy little thing and I can carry my ULTRIX rig with me wherever I go. Since I mostly use the WIFI interface on the netbook, the ethernet interface is available but what I do lack is the possibility to get SIMH to run against a virtual network so that I can FTP from it to and fro the ULTRIX instance within the box, so to speak. Anybody out there that have tried this? If so, mail me at: [email protected].
Cheers!
/Lars
I used tapes for getting things in, although I used the SLIRP / NAT and a HTTP server for getting data out……. Not perfect by any stretch but it works.