Hey Snoopy!
Following up on Adventures with Snoopy, Mihai has delivered!  Snoopy printed out from a VAX onto a real 9 pin printer, onto paper!
Just the way we used to do things a million years ago!
Be sure to check out the whole thing on hawk.ro, Â complete with pictures, and source material! Â Totally check it out, for that real programmer’s vibe!
And for those who have no idea, here is where it all started.
While looking for a update on SIMH, I accidentally found this site, vaxhaven.com.
And for those who love everything VAX, they have a nice TK50 tape archive!
Now you can get your VAX/Fortran on. If you must.
Years ago, I was given an image of VMS 4.7. Â I only tested it for idle capabilities, and that is as far as I got with it. Â I never used it for anything else.
But today I needed to verify my Win32 Hecnet project works, so I needed to generate some legit DECNet traffic. Â Luckily I still have the VMS image, and in the prevailing years I managed to get a copy of PathWorks for Windows NT (And one for MS-DOS as well!).
So googling around, I found blinkenbone who mentions the command needed to setup some DECNet love.  Now the one thing that is strange about DECNet is that the MAC address needs to be changed to the DECNet area & node id.  Thankfully there is an online calculator, powerdog.  Since I’m just testing, I’ll put my VAX in area 1, node 1, that means the VAX MAC needs to be set to:
AA-00-04-00-01-04
So in SIMH, I just use the line:
set xq mac=AA-00-04-00-01-04
Cool. Â Now I use ansicon, in the hopes it’ll make the console better, and fire up VMS.
VMS 4.7 booted
And then login as system/manager
Now I can setup decnet very simply like this:
Username: SYSTEM
Password:
Welcome to VAX/VMS version V4.7
Last interactive login on Saturday, 20-SEP-2008 17:32
$ @sys$manager:netconfig
DECnet-VAX network configuration procedure
This procedure will help you define the parameters needed to get DECnet
running on this machine. You will be shown the changes before they are
executed, in case you wish to perform them manually.
What do you want your DECnet node name to be? : rabbit
What do you want your DECnet address to be? : 1.1
Do you want to operate as a router? [NO (nonrouting)]:
Do you want a default DECnet account? [YES]:
Here are the commands necessary to setup your system.
————————————————————————–
$ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:NCP
PURGE KNOWN OBJECTS ALL
PURGE MODULE CONFIGURATOR KNOWN CIRCUITS ALL
$ DEFINE/USER SYS$OUTPUT NL:
$ DEFINE/USER SYS$ERROR NL:
$ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:NCP ! Remove existing entry, if any
PURGE NODE 1.1 ALL
PURGE NODE RABBIT ALL
$ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:NCP
DEFINE EXECUTOR ADDRESS 1.1 STATE ON
DEFINE EXECUTOR NAME RABBIT
DEFINE EXECUTOR MAXIMUM ADDRESS 1023
DEFINE EXECUTOR TYPE NONROUTING IV
DEFINE EXECUTOR NONPRIVILEGED USER DECNET
DEFINE EXECUTOR NONPRIVILEGED PASSWORD DECNET
$ DEFINE/USER_MODE SYSUAF SYS$SYSTEM:SYSUAF.DAT
$ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:AUTHORIZE
ADD DECNET /OWNER=”DECNET DEFAULT” –
/PASSWORD=DECNET –
/UIC=[376,376] /ACCOUNT=DECNET –
/DEVICE=SYS$SPECIFIC: /DIRECTORY=[DECNET] –
/PRIVILEGE=(TMPMBX,NETMBX) –
/DEFPRIVILEGE=(TMPMBX,NETMBX) –
Press RETURN to continue
/FLAGS=(CAPTIVE) /LGICMD=NL: –
/NOBATCH /NOINTERACTIVE
$ CREATE/DIRECTORY SYS$SPECIFIC:[DECNET] /OWNER=[376,376]
$ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:NCP
DEFINE LINE QNA-0 STATE ON
DEFINE CIRCUIT QNA-0 STATE ON COST 4
DEFINE LOGGING MONITOR STATE ON
DEFINE LOGGING MONITOR EVENTS 0.0-9
DEFINE LOGGING MONITOR EVENTS 2.0-1
DEFINE LOGGING MONITOR EVENTS 4.2-13,15-16,18-19
DEFINE LOGGING MONITOR EVENTS 5.0-18
DEFINE LOGGING MONITOR EVENTS 128.0-4
————————————————————————–
Do you want to go ahead and do it? [YES]:
%UAF-I-ADDMSG, user record successfully added
%UAF-I-RDBADDMSGU, identifier DECNET value: [000376,000376] added to RIGHTSLIST.
DAT
%UAF-I-DONEMSG, system authorization file modified
%UAF-I-RDBDONEMSG, rights database modified
%NCP-I-NMLRSP, listener response – Success
Logging sink type = monitor
%NML-I-RECADDED, Database entry added
The changes have been made.
If you have not already installed the DECnet-VAX license, then do so now.
After the license has been installed, you should invoke the procedure
SYS$MANAGER:STARTNET.COM to startup DECnet-VAX with these changes.
(If the license is already installed) Do you want DECnet started? [YES]:
%%%%%%%%%%% OPCOM 28-OCT-1987 15:42:37.64 %%%%%%%%%%%
Message from user DECNET
DECnet starting
%RUN-S-PROC_ID, identification of created process is 00000109
%RUN-S-PROC_ID, identification of created process is 0000010B
$
%%%%%%%%%%% OPCOM 28-OCT-1987 15:42:42.67 %%%%%%%%%%%
Message from user DECNET
DECnet event 4.10, circuit up
From node 1.1 (RABBIT), 28-OCT-1987 15:42:37.69
Circuit QNA-0
It basically set itself up.
And on the Windows NT side, I simply set itself up as node 2 in area 1.
Windows NT + Pathworks
And now I can use CTERM to connect to the VAX.
CTERM
Nice!. Â And it even works through my port of HECNet.
On reboots you have to manually start the network. Â I don’t have EDT, or I don’t know where to find it (remember the gold key? ugh).
Manually starting the network
But it’s a simple command:
@SYS$MANAGER:startnet.com
And you are good to go!
Likewise shutting down is accomplished with this:
@SYS$SYSTEM:SHUTDOWN.COM
And that’s about all I know about VMS. Â But it’s good to see that configuring this was pain free!
I don’t know how I missed this thing!
$ cat lvax
load -r ka655.bin
set rq0 ra92
att rq0 /tmp/vmlinux.dsk
att xq dummy0
boot cpu
$ ./vax lvax
MicroVAX 3900 simulator V4.0-0 Beta git commit id: 55c5d205
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.
>>>show dev
UQSSP Disk Controller 0 (772150)
-DUA0 (RA92)
-DUA1 (RD54)
-DUA2 (RD54)
-DUA3 (RX50)
UQSSP Tape Controller 0 (774500)
-MUA0 (TK50)
-MUA1 (TK50)
-MUA2 (TK50)
-MUA3 (TK50)
RLV12 Controller 0 (774400)
-DLA0 (RL01)
-DLA1 (RL01)
-DLA2 (RL01)
-DLA3 (RL01)
Ethernet Adapter 0 (774440)
-XQA0 (08-00-2B-AA-BB-CC)
>>>boot dua0:
(BOOT/R5:0 DUA0
2..
-DUA0
1..0..
CPU type:
80004A04KA650
Boot Head.S loaded at address 00004A00
rpb/bootr5/ap/sp 00000000 00000000 00000344 00004800
relocated at phys address 00100307
CPU type: 0A000006 sidex: 01530302
Starting VM
Linux/VAX ([email protected])
KA650 sidex = 01530302
RPB info: l_pfncnt: 00007f98, .l_vmb_version: 0a000207 .l_badpgs: 00000000
Physical memory: 00007f98 HW pagelets, 00000ff3 pages (16332KB)
CPU type: KA650, SID: 00000000
VM: mapped physical from 80000000 to 80ff3000, iomap from 80ff3000
VM: vmalloc from 810f3000 to 814f3000
VM: ptemap from 814f4000 to 837f4000 for 64 processes
calling start_kernel…
Linux version 2.4.16 ([email protected]) (gcc version 2.95.2-linuxvax-dynamic-dev (CVS)) #28 Wed Feb 12 09:55:28 GMT 2003
kernel_cmd_line 80004a04
root=/dev/nfs ip=192.168.5.240:192.168.5.67:::vaxemu:eth0:none nfsroot=/mnt/redhat/vax_emu/vaxroot rw debug init=/bin/sh
VAXMM: Initialising mm layer for 64 tasks of size 64MB
VAXMM: system page table base 8020b800, length (bytes) 6fe80 length (ptes) 1bfa0
bootmap size = 00000200
calling free_bootmem(start=00001000, len=000ff000)
calling free_bootmem(start=0027c000, len=00d77000)
On node 0 totalpages: 4083
zone(0): 4083 pages.
zone(1): 0 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: root=/dev/nfs ip=192.168.5.240:192.168.5.67:::vaxemu:eth0:none nfsroot=/mnt/redhat/vax_emu/vaxroot rw debug init=/bin/sh
Calibrating delay loop… 23.29 BogoMIPS
Memory: 14556k/16332k available
Dentry-cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Starting kswapd
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with no serial options enabled
block: 64 slots per queue, batch=16
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
IO mapped phys addr 0x20088000, 0x0008 pages at virt 0x80ff3000 (IOMAP PTE index 0x0000)
ttyS0: Internal processor register console
IO mapped phys addr 0x20001000, 0x0001 pages at virt 0x80ffb000 (IOMAP PTE index 0x0008)
delqa qbus vector: 4 (0004, 0x0004)
Ethernet address in ROM: 08:00:2b:aa:bb:cc
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 512 bind 512)
eth0: resetting DELQA… done
IP-Config: Guessing netmask 255.255.255.0
IP-Config: Complete:
device=eth0, addr=192.168.5.240, mask=255.255.255.0, gw=255.255.255.255,
host=vaxemu, domain=, nis-domain=(none),
bootserver=192.168.5.67, rootserver=192.168.5.67, rootpath=
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
Looking up port of RPC 100003/2 on 192.168.5.67
I’m amazed that it runs this far under SIMH. Â Sadly though disks are not supported on any of the SIMH models, as Linux relies on certain CPU models:
The project has moved from sourceforge, to a dedicated server. Â Sadly it seems that it has been a few years between updates, but I guess someone could carry the torch….
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. Â 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 DUA02..
-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 1NetBSD/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
* unzip552This 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
In 1987 the first announcement went out that Stallman had introduced perhaps the most important piece of GNU software ever:  GCC.
I haven’t been able to locate the 1.0 release or even the 0.9 beta (*Edit as an update, yes I’ve found it, and installed it!), as close as I could find was 1.21 from May 1st, 1988. Even at this time, GCC supported the following CPUs:
GCC 1.21 on 4.2 BSD
I don’t know if it serves any practical value but I went ahead and built a source package for GCC 1.21, along with a 4.2 BSD binary package.. I suspect it’d only be an interest to a select few.. Although if anyone has 1.0 or 0.9 I’d be interested!
By 1991 GCC 1.40 supported not only the i386, but Linux kernel.. And as they say the rest is history.
And finally a video summation of all the changes to GCC…
It’s been a long while since I’ve posted anything VAX BSD related.  So I found this ISO image a while back that had all these old versions of BSD on them, but sadly many of them are incomplete, missing parts, and give really no clue on how to use them.  There is even some duplication thrown in there just to complicate things further.  So I figured I’d try one of them, an interim release of 4 BSD and see if I could just overlay a newer release version and see what I get…
VAX780 simulator V3.8-1
Listening on port 23 (socket 156)
loading ra(0,0)boot
Boot
: ra(0,0)vmunix
215688+63964+69764 start 0xf98
4.1c BSD UNIX #2: Tue Aug 28 09:39:12 PDT 1984
real mem = 8384512
avail mem = 7036928
using 148 buffers containing 838656 bytes of memory
mcr0 at tr1
mcr1 at tr2
uba0 at tr3
hk0 at uba0 csr 177440 vec 210, ipl 15
rk0 at hk0 slave 0
rk1 at hk0 slave 1
uda0 at uba0 csr 172150 vec 774, ipl 15
ra0 at uda0 slave 0
ra1 at uda0 slave 1
zs0 at uba0 csr 172520 vec 224, ipl 15
ts0 at zs0 slave 0
dz0 at uba0 csr 160100 vec 300, ipl 15
mba0 at tr8
root on ra0
WARNING: should run interleaved swap with >= 2Mb
Automatic reboot in progress...
Tue Aug 28 09:54:53 PDT 1984
/dev/rra0a: 836 files, 6010 used, 1419 free (35 frags, 173 blocks)
/dev/rra0h: 6598 files, 41780 used, 320080 free (160 frags, 79980 blocks)
Tue Aug 28 09:54:58 PDT 1984
local daemons: telnetd ftpd tftpd syslog sendmail.
preserving editor files
clearing /tmp
standard daemons: update cron accounting berknet mail printer.
starting network: rshd rexecd rlogind rwhod routed.
Tue Aug 28 09:55:00 PDT 1984
ucbmonet login: root
Last login: Tue Aug 28 09:44:44 on tty00
4.1c BSD UNIX #2: Tue Aug 28 09:39:12 PDT 1984
Master source now lives here; freeze your 4.1c stuff now.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
-- Albert Einstein
monet#
Pretty cool. Â And oddly enough googling around doesn’t seem to find much about people running 4.1c BSD, but it is significant with the first version of sendmail being bundled, and rogue.
The release also includes TCP/IP support but I haven’t the slightest idea how to use it. Â I suppose reading the instructions is key. Â But I thought I’d share this little fossil first.
For those who want to try it, you can download it here. Â It’s using SIMH, so if you aren’t running Windows, bring your own VAX 11/780 and you’ll be good to go.
I stumbled across this the other day, Giano, a simulation framework.
Included is a bunch of stuff, like a basic x86 / cepc (with Windows CE 6.0 image), an Xbox 360 emulator, a SPOT emulator, some eval boards (AT91EB63?) with both MIPS and ARM cpus that even include a doom kernel like experience! A Macintosh G5 (I wonder if it’d boot with Apple ROMS..?) Oh and..
A VAX.
The VAX code is taken from SIMH but I guess to show how extensible the framework is, they mashed in enough microvax to get it going.
SIMH in a way you’ve never seen it…
At any rate, here is some other screen shots of Giano in action….
CEPC
xbox 360 alpha test
xbox360 console
And of course….
Giano MIPS doom
DOOM
Also buried in there is a new MIPS variant, the emips along with a donated NetBSD port!
Sadly I had no luck running NetBSD….
Default: 0/ace(0,0)/netbsd
boot: 0/ace(1,0)/netbsd
Loading: 0/ace(1,0)/netbsd
5085072+70448=0x4eae14
Starting at 0x80020000memory segment 0 start 00000000 size 10000000
memory segment 1 start 10000000 size 00100000
Too much memory in cluster 0, trimming memory to range 00000000..08000000
Too much memory, ignoring memory range 10000000..10100000
pmap_steal_memory: seg 0: 0x50b 0x50b 0x7fff 0x7fff
pmap_steal_memory: seg 0: 0x54b 0x54b 0x7fff 0x7fff
pmap_steal_memory: seg 0: 0x54d 0x54d 0x7fff 0x7fff
Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
The NetBSD Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.NetBSD 5.99.48 (RAMDISK) #0: Tue Mar 15 01:01:14 UTC 2011
[email protected]:/home/builds/ab/HEAD/emips/201103142200Z-obj/home/builds/ab/HEAD/src/sys/arch/emips/compile/RAMDISK
Xilinx ML50x (eMIPS)
total memory = 128 MB
avail memory = 120 MB
sysctl_createv: sysctl_create(no_sa_support) returned 22
mainbus0 (root)
cpu0 at mainbus0: Toshiba or Microsoft eMIPS CPU (0x70401) Rev. 1 with software emulated floating point
cpu0: 64 TLB entries
ebus0 at mainbus0
pid 0(system): trap: cpu0, TLB miss (load or instr. fetch) in kernel mode
status=0x2000000, cause=0x8, epc=0x8002d5c8, vaddr=0xd0000000
tf=0x8054cc78 ksp=0x8054cd18 ra=0x8002d5b8 ppl=0xd0000000
kernel: TLB miss (load or instr. fetch) trap
Stopped in pid 0.1 (system) at 0x8002d5c8: lw v0,0(s0)
db>
Maybe someone else will have better luck.
— edit, it seems Microsoft has a NetBSD 4.01 download, here. And it boots!
So I’ve been working on some instructions to install the first NetBSD I could find that would run on SIMH’s MicroVAX II… Think of it as a lineage continuation from the 4.3 BSD to the Net/2. Anyways the 1.2 install proved to be.. .difficult to say the least, however once it’s installed I found a weird snag, that NetBSD 1.2 doesn’t seem to have curses…. And I though curses was one of those things that made any BSD a BSD.
I haven’t put together an install just yet, I figure I’ll have to download ncurses over, and build with that but I just don’t have the time today, so I’m leaving things where they are for now. Although I did manage to get a bunch more other stuff built, which I’ve posted package tapes on my sourceforge page here. And if anyone is that motivated they can always follow the above instructions, and install their own NetBSD 1.2 VAX, although I’m not holding my breath.. lol
Also I noticed that NetBSD 1.2 doesn’t have any fortran, so I built f2c, and managed to get dungeon running. woo!
Yep, it runs Dungeon!
Oh well it’s all good fun from 1996.
While checking out this page, I came across this:
"Starlink"
Looks pretty neat eh?
And from the poster:
“Starlink” will provide the astronomical community in the United Kingdom with unsurpassed facilities for rapid and efficient analysis of the vast amount of data produced on telescopes throughout and above the world, thus providing essential support to research which probes the furthest reaches of the Universe.
Then googling about you can find some more here.
So as we can tell, the above picture should have been captioned:
“Starlink VAX11/780 in the Atlas Centre, August 1980. Anton Walter and Lorna Claringbold”
Anyways I wonder if they have the old programs from the starlink…..