Coherent on Qemu

well apparently it *DOES* work, however the disk access is incredibly slow, like 1kb/sec slow.. I can’t help but wonder if it is somehow tied to how NetWare 3.12 bombs on Qemu once it tries to mount a volume….

Anyways, you can read all about it on “The beez speaks:” which goes into some detail on how to dump Qemu’s running state, and restore.. Kind of handy actually.

I remember the print ads for Coherent, nearly bought it but I felt too weirded out by it being mail order.  My loss I guess, but it sure would have been nice to have before the whole rise of 386 BSD / Linux …

jsDosBox

Love DOSBox on java, but don’t like java? Love the power of Google’s v8 javascript engine? Well then you’ll love this, introducing jsDOSBox, a port of jDOSBox to javascript!

That’s right, with chrome, it is as simple as click and go!

Doom in dosbox all in javascript!

So how does it perform? well OK OK, its slow, but it sure does have promise!  Then again it could be my laptop.  But wow, emulation in javascript!

Test it here.

OpenBSD 5.1 released!

I saw the announcement that OpenBSD 5.1 was just released today (May day release?) Anyways I thought I’d boot it up on SIMH to check that the VAX is still working. So here is a minimal ini file, that I used.

set cpu 64m
set rq0 ra92
att rq0 openbsd_vax
set rq1 cdrom
att rq1 cd51.iso
at xq0 bob
boot cpu

I fired up SIMH, and away it went!

KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7
Performing normal system tests.
40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25..
24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09..
08..07..06..05..04..03..
Tests completed.
>>>boot dua1:
(BOOT/R5:0 DUA1

 

2..
-DUA1
1..0..
>> OpenBSD/vax boot [1.16] <<
>> Press enter to autoboot now, or any other key to abort: 0
> boot bsd
878604+1623756+375488=0x2be99c
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1995-2012 OpenBSD. All rights reserved. http://www.OpenBSD.org

OpenBSD 5.1 (RAMDISK) #32: Tue Feb 14 14:09:56 MST 2012
[email protected]:/usr/src/sys/arch/vax/compile/RAMDISK
MicroVAX 3800/3900 [0A000006 01530302]
cpu: KA655, CVAX microcode rev 6 Firmware rev 83
real mem = 67043328 (63MB)
avail mem = 61091840 (58MB)
mainbus0 at root
ibus0 at mainbus0
uba0 at ibus0: Q22
dz0 at uba0 csr 160100 vec 196 ipl 15
mtc0 at uba0 csr 174500 vec 508 ipl 15
mscpbus0 at mtc0: version 5 model 3
mscpbus0: DMA burst size set to 4
mt0 at mscpbus0 drive 0: TK50
mt1 at mscpbus0 drive 1: TK50
mt2 at mscpbus0 drive 2: TK50
mt3 at mscpbus0 drive 3: TK50
uda0 at uba0 csr 172150 vec 504 ipl 15
mscpbus1 at uda0: version 3 model 3
mscpbus1: DMA burst size set to 4
ra0 at mscpbus1 drive 0: RA92
ra1 at mscpbus1 drive 1: RRD40
ra2 at mscpbus1 drive 2: RD54
rx0 at mscpbus1 drive 3: RX50
qe0 at uba0 csr 174440 vec 500 ipl 15: delqa, address 08:00:2b:aa:bb:cc
boot device: ra1
ra0: 1436MB, 512 bytes/sector, 2940951 sectors
ra1: 650MB, 512 bytes/sector, 1331200 sectors
ra2: attempt to bring on line failed: unit offline (not mounted) (code 3, subco
de 1)
ra2: not mounted/spun down
ra2: 0MB, 512 bytes/sector, 0 sectors
rx0: attempt to bring on line failed: unit offline (not mounted) (code 3, subco
de 1)
root on rd0a swap on rd0b dump on rd0b
clock has gained 76 days — CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!
erase ^?, werase ^W, kill ^U, intr ^C, status ^T

Welcome to the OpenBSD/vax 5.1 installation program.
(I)nstall, (U)pgrade or (S)hell?

You can find OpenBSD on OpenBSD.org, and of course the mirrors.

Flight simulator 4!

Flight Simulator 4

From a comment made by ampharos, there is all kinds of weird stuff on the old Microsoft FTP server, including all kinds of stuff in the stress test directory.. So wandering around I came across something I never noticed, Flight Simulator 4!

That’s right and for MS-DOS.  I recall running this on OS/2 2.0 was kind of a big deal, but its cooler in dosbox! … Anyways, if you want click here, and download away.  I think this version was intended to more of a demo, but it’s still cool to watch the jet plane going through the motions.

What is amazing to me is just how compact it is… It seems there was a lot ‘more’ with less back then, but maybe we’ve come to expect so much more?

Every Manager’s Guide to OS/2

I got word of this on G+, and I finally got somewhere where I could look at it properly:

With all the articles talking about the 25th birthday of OS/2 posted two weeks ago I found this one from David Strom. (Windows 8: The OS/2 of Today,) On this article he said he wrote an OS/2 book that never got finished or released. So I contacted the author and requested his permission to release the book under a license that allows derivative works.

David Strom released his 1988 book “Every Manager’s Guide to OS2” under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) license.

This 200 page book belongs OS/2 1.x era and it is in draft state. It has revision remarks and missing screenshots. I had transformed it to docx, odt and pdf format and it is now available for download at hobbes.

Link: http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/…

I will like to thank David Strom for making it possible.

 

Enjoy!

The blog will be on hiatus for a bit…

Personal issues have intervened with pretty much everything. This morning, I packed as much as I could into three suitcases, bought a one-way ticket, and I’m leaving my ‘home’ behind.

While in the past I’ve taken a few months off here & there I’ve done my best the last two years to get in an update of something at least 2x a week, if not more.

However, I don’t feel that I am in any position to do so now, I don’t even have a proper place to live so the next while will be .. interesting to say the least.

If things get too crazy I’ll wind up archiving this thing in Egypt and I don’t know from there…

But at the same time, who knows the future isn’t written.

there is not fate, but what we make.

NetBSD 1.2 for the MicroVAX II package…

Well looking around on my sourceforge page, it hit me that I never did do a NetBSD 1.2 MicroVAX II package, so I thought I’d slap one together.  I basically just followed my install notes, and added in some stuff that I’d built earlier.

So for those who care, here you go!

From the package’s readme:

Welcome to this minimal version of NetBSD 1.2 for the MicroVAX II.

Getting started
:::::::::::::::

just fire up the emulator like this:

vax.exe run.ini

—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<

C:\netbsd1.2\test>vax.exe run.ini

VAX simulator V3.8-1
run.ini> set idle OLDVMS
Non-existent device
TS: creating new file
Loading boot code from ka655x.bin

?[c
KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7
Performing normal system tests.
40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25..
24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09..
08..07..06..05..04..03..
Tests completed.
>>>
—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<

You’ll be booted up to the boot rom. next we have to boot from the
hard disk. NetBSD’s bootblocks were very fragile back then so
it won’t autoboot. I never did tear into it to see why it won’t boot
so you’ll have to do it the old fasioned way.
>>>b/3 dua0
(BOOT/R5:3 DUA0

2..
-DUA0
1..0..
howto 0x3, bdev 0x11, booting…done. (11108+33996)

Nboot
:ra(0,0)netbsd
—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<

Once you’ve booted the kernel, it’ll probe out the hardware, then
it’ll ask where the root disk is (ra0a).

—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<
zs0: timeout waiting for TS_SSR
tmscp0 at uba0 csr 174500 vec 760, ipl 15
tms0 at tmscp0 slave 0
qe0 at uba0 csr 174440 vec 754 ipl 15
qe0: delqa, hardware address 08:00:2b:aa:bb:cc
dz0 at uba0 csr 160100 vec 304 ipl 15
root device?
—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<

Armed with this information you can simply hit enter as it’ll want
to drop to single user mode, then hit contrl+d and it’ll resume booting
into multiuser mode.

—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<
root device? ra0a
?Enter pathname of shell or RETURN for sh:
#
—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<
remember it’s enter then control+d

—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<
#^D setting tty flags
starting network
add host amnesiac.my.domain: gateway localhost
add net default: gateway 10.0.2.2
starting rpc daemons: portmap.
starting system logger, time daemon.
checking for core dump…
savecore: no core dump
checking quotas: done.
building databases…
clearing /tmp
standard daemons: update cron.
starting network daemons: routed printer inetd.
creating runtime link editor directory cache.
starting local daemons:.
Tue May 5 08:29:22 PDT 1998
May 5 08:29:22 amnesiac init: kernel security level changed from 0 to 1

NetBSD/vax (amnesiac.my.domain) (console)

login:
—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<
And there we go, NetBSD is all booted. The network is configured, you
may wish to change the /etc/resolv.conf if you so wish.
USING NETBSD
::::::::::::

Once the system is booted up into multiuser mode, TCP/IP is enabled and
you can now telnet into your system, by connecting to the localhost on
port 42323.

telnet localhost 42323

will connect you, and you’ll get the login prompt:

—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<
NetBSD/vax (amnesiac.my.domain) (ttyp0)

login:
—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<—–8<

There is no root password, so you can just login as root, and away you
go. I prefer to telnet in so I get a working terminal as the console
doesn’t do any VT100 emulation, its more of a dumb TTY. Outside of the
default programs in NetBSD the following programs have been installed
into the image:
* bash-2.0
* dungeon-2.5.6
* ircii-4.4
* lynx-2.8.2
* GNUmake-3.75
* pine-3.87
* screen-3.7.1
* unzip552

This should at least make using the system somewhat tollerable.

FAQ
:::
Q:When I hit backspace I get ^H ‘s!!!
A:stty erase <backspace>

In unix they used keyboards with delete keys instead of backspaces… Oh the horrors.
SHUTTING DOWN
:::::::::::::

This should be simple, login as root and just issue the following command:

reboot

And you’ll get halted to the SIMH prompt from there you can just quit.

NetBSD 1.2 MicroVAX II