Q: What was VAXELN written in?
A: The software for the target (OS, drivers, tools, etc) was largely written in VAXELN's own
PASCAL-like language, EPASCAL. The intention was that complete VAXELN systems
(including drivers) could be developed with no need for knowledge of VAX assembler.
There was at one time a VAXELN Source Kit available, which had very little assembler in it.
There intentionally wasn't enough in the Source Kit to rebuild a complete VAXELN OS.
In later VAXELNs, other languages besides EPASCAL were added: VAX C, VAX Pascal, VAX
Ada. Maybe FORTRAN. And VAXELN's own debugger was supplemented by a host/target
variant of the standard VAX/VMS debugger.
VAXELN V4.5 or later (mid 1990s?) is a good place to aim for if you want a fully functional
version, rather than a historically interesting version.
Q: What's VAXELN's current status?
A: Retired, since a long time ago. Not ported to Alpha. VAXELN customers were "encouraged"
to move to VxWorks for Alpha, which would have been a major effort. I wasn't aware of anyone
in UK (or Europe) that bothered making the move.
Q: Who owns VAXELN now?
A: Unclear. It became part of DEC's Embedded + Realtime group, which was eventually sold off
(by Compaq) to SMART Modular Technologies and has since had various owners in the world of
high end embedded/RT systems. When I last looked, last year, Emerson Network Power owned
at least E+RT's PICMG hardware, but that again now seems to have moved elsewhere...
It has been claimed in comp.os.vms that VAXELN wasn't included when CPQ sold the E+RT stuff,
which is entirely plausible.
Definitive info welcome.
Q: What documentation is there for VAXELN?
A: The documentation that exists is to DEC's usual standards. Hardcopy and bookreader
versions of most VAXELN docs exist; the bookreader stuff is available online. I am not aware of
PS or PDF versions (there were internal-only PS versions).
There was/is a PC version of Bookreader, for those that don't yet have a VMS system.
The VAXELN Technical Summary is an excellent mini-book, if you happen across one. It'd be
nice if there was a copy online; I'm not aware of one.
The excellent VAX Realtime User's Guide, EK-VAXRT-UG001 (1986!) covers using VAX for
realtime applications on both VMS and VAXELN, in some considerable depth. Also not
immediately locatable online, sadly.
DEC EduServices used to have some nice training materials for VAXELN, going back a very long
time. Unlikely to be online.
There have been occasional VAXELN-related discussions in comp.os,vms, e.g. on 1 March 2007
I replied re VAXELN to a query on "History of VMS and related operating systems", see e.g.
http://unix.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/comp.os.vms/2007-03/msg00014.html
(Google Groups links are not helpful as they are very likely to rot over time).
hth
john wallace
I have started playing with the rtVAX 1000 I collected last year. It was
running OK when then was a sudden bang and the machine stopped. Not even the
fans will run. There was no smell and no smoke, so I knew immediately that
it can't be the mains filter capacitors, which always fail on these power
supplies.
I have opened it up and cannot see any damage in the PSU, the CPU, the
memory, or any of the other boards. I am sure it must be the power supply,
but I really can't see any damage. The power supply is one of the ASTEC ones
common in the MicroVAX II.
My first step is going to be to test the PSU with a dummy load using light
bulbs (still haven't built a board for a dummy load) and with the fans
connected, but nothing else. Will also check for ripple at the same time.
There are two outputs from the PSU that I don't fully understand, one is P
OK, I am guessing that means *something* is OK, but not sure what, power
perhaps, but what power?. The other is called LTC, I have no idea what that
one means. Can anyone enlighten me?
Any other ideas?
Regards
Rob
This is a followup to my previous email (attached)...
I just finished reading the PDP-5 Users Manual - and discovered the
following statement regarding the "operate instruction" (note: words in
parentheses are mine):
"Any logical combination of bits within this group (Group 1) can be
combined into one microinstruction. For example, it is possible to
assign ones to bite 5,6 and 11; but it is not logical to assign ones to
bits 8 and 9 simultaneously since they specify conflicting operations
(bits 8&9 are rotate right and rotate left). If RAL or RAR is
specified, neither CMA or CML may be specified, and conversely. If RTL
or RTR is specified, neither CMA, CML or IAC may be specified, and
conversely."
So the PDP-5 was even more restrictive with regard to microinstructions
than the PDP-8/S!
Matter of fact, I'm now even more impressed how Saul Dinman was able to
design almost all of the functional capabilities of the PDP-8 into the
PDP-8/S's compact package.
In addition, while the PDP-8/S was only about half the performance of a
PDP-5, the price of the PDP-5 was $27,000 while the price of the PDP-8/S
was about $10,000 (4KW core, including TTY). In that context, it was a
pretty good deal...
Cheers,
Lyle
------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 17:31:45 -0700
From: Lyle Bickley <lbickley at bickleywest.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: PDP-8/S Incompatibilities......
I've had my PDP-8/S up and running for some time - but have recently
experienced failures using some PDP-8 software.
My 8/S passes all the DEC diagnostics - and it runs FOCAL-69 and 71
perfectly.
So I decided to track down what was causing some programs to fail - and
I discovered that the problem is PDP-8/S incompatibilities.
PDP-8/S "Reality"
-----------------
The PDP-8/S User Manual lies! It makes the following claim
regarding Group 1 Operate Instructions:
"The only restriction on combining OPR 1 (Group 1) operations
within one instruction, other than logical conflicts, is that
a rotate operation (bits 8, 9 or 10) may not be combined with
the increment AC operation (bit 11) since they are executed
during the same bit times."
I decided to test that claim on my PDP-8/S and got the
following results (via single stepping through the test
program below.)
The "8/S" column is Link AC contents (L AAAA):
*200 Page 1
1 0200 *200
2 /AC 8/S NOTES
3 00200 7200 CLA /0 0 0000
4 00201 7201 CLA IAC /1 0 0001
5 00202 7326 CLA CLL CML RTL /2 0 0002
6 00203 7325 CLA CLL CML IAC RAL /3 1 0003 8/I AND UP
7 00204 7307 CLA CLL IAC RTL /4 1 0001 8/I AND UP
8 00205 7327 CLA CLL CML IAC RTL /6 1 0003 8/I AND UP
9 00206 7215 CLA IAC RAL RAR /10 1 0003 6120
10 00207 7203 CLA IAC BSW /100 1 0001 8/E AND UP
11 00210 7332 CLA CLL CML RTR /2000 0 2000
12 00211 7354 CLA CLL CMA RAR RAL /3776 1 7777 8/I OR 8/L
13 00212 7350 CLA CLL CMA RAR /3777 1 7777
14 00213 7330 CLA CLL CML RAR /4000 0 4000
15 00214 7352 CLA CLL CMA RTR /5777 1 7777
16 00215 7333 CLA CLL CML IAC RTR /6000 1 0003 8/I AND UP
17 00216 7346 CLA CLL CMA RTL /7775 1 7777
18 00217 7344 CLA CLL CMA RAL /7776 1 7777
19 00220 7240 CLA CMA /7777 ? 7777
20 00221 7402 HLT
21 $
No detected errors
No links generated
Note that all of the CMA shift instructions failed - even
though the test (from Programming Languages) thought they
should work in pre-8/I machines.
At first I thought my PDP-8/S was failing - until I found the
following from the PDP-8/S FAQ (What is a PDP-8/S?):
"Compatibility: The core of the PDP-8 instruction set is present,
but there are a sufficient number of incompatibilities that, as
with the PDP-5, many otherwise portable "Family of 8" programs
will not run on the PDP-8/S. Perhaps the worst incompatibility
is that the Group 1 OPR instruction CMA cannot be combined with
any of the rotate instructions; as with the PDP-8, IAC also cannot
be combined with rotate."
I decided to understand WHY this happens - and the answer
is in the PDP-8/S Maintenance Manual and the PDP-8/S
schematics. I've abreviated the sequence of execution
below. (The "Ax" references are bit timimg):
Group 1 Instruction Sequencing
------------------------------
Fetch
-----
A12 Set or Clear Link, Clear AC per instruction
Execute
-------
A00 For right rotation (A00-01), shift AC+L together
once or twice per instruction
A(00-11) IAC: Adds one to AC
CMA: Complements the AC
IAC*CMA: Complement and add one to AC
Left Rotate: AC+L shifted right 11 or 12 times
per instruction
A12 IAC: Complements L on overflow (CMA appears
in gating, but has no effect)
As can be seen, while the system clears the AC and clears
or sets the Link during Fetch - it rotates right BEFORE
complementing the AC! It also attempts to execute a complement
of the AC at the SAME TIME as a left rotate - which simply
does not work!
Finally, just to verify the correctness of the test program,
I single stepped it on my PDP-8/E and got the same results
as the SIMH trace below:
SIMH PDP8 Trace of the above:
-----------------------------
sim> sh cpu history
PC L AC MQ ea IR
00200 1 7777 0000 CLA
00201 1 0000 0000 CLA IAC
00202 1 0001 0000 CLA CLL CML RTL
00203 0 0002 0000 CLA CLL CML IAC RAL
00204 0 0003 0000 CLA CLL IAC RTL
00205 0 0004 0000 CLA CLL CML IAC RTL
00206 0 0006 0000 CLA IAC RAL RAR
00207 0 0001 0000 CLA IAC BSW
00210 0 0100 0000 CLA CLL CML RTR
00211 0 2000 0000 CLA CLL CMA RAL RAR
00212 0 7354 0000 CLA CLL CMA RAR
00213 1 3777 0000 CLA CLL CML RAR
00214 0 4000 0000 CLA CLL CMA RTR
00215 1 5777 0000 CLA CLL CML IAC RTR
00216 0 6000 0000 CLA CLL CMA RTL
00217 1 7775 0000 CLA CLL CMA RAL
00220 1 7776 0000 STA
00221 1 7777 0000 HLT
sim>
Cheers,
Lyle
--
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
--
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
Anyone have copies of the service manuals for Tandberg, Archive, or Wangtek SCSI QIC tape drives
TDC 3600/3800, Archive 2160S/2150S, etc?
I picked up a copy of the product manual for the TDC3600 series, and I realized that I don't have
any maintenance manuals for the SCSI QIC products.
On a 4116, pin 1 is -5V, while the 4164 is N/C. Every guide online says
to snip off pin 1 if migrating to 4164s in a 4116 footprint, but I don't
understand why. If pin 1 on a 4164 is truly N/C, then why does it
matter if the pin is inserted?
Jim
--
Jim Brain
brain at jbrain.comwww.jbrain.com
Hello all,
I got a batch of orginal Convex tapes with ConvexOS for C1xx, C2xx, C34xx an C38xx.
This tape seems to be stored in a quite moisty environemnt and are partial molded.
Since these tapes, their content is of high value for me, beside of this I don't know if ConvvexOS is somewhere archived, how to process these tapes to be readed successfully.
@Al: shall I send this tape to you before starting my own experiments?
Andreas
----- Original Message -----
> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 17:49:32 -0500
> From: "drlegendre ." <drlegendre at gmail.com>
> ..,.For swaps, I have ... a couple of MM5314N
> display drivers, as used in Nixie tube clocks - the latter sell for
> $20-25/ea, IIRC.
----- Reply:
My MM5314Ns are digital clock chips, not display drivers, and they have 7
segment outputs not really suited for Nixie tubes at all...
m
Coming across some old PDP-8 files from him today reminded me, has ANYONE
heard anything from Jeff Russ? He may have retired by now. I think the last
time I saw him was when I went out there to visit in the early 2000's.
Well, we finally managed to pick up the huge collection of computers
>from a basement in enschede, The Netherlands.
Is was quite a project.
after visiting the place to get an idea about what there was and how to
get it out of there, we made a plan. the key problem was that almost 90
percent had to come through a small hatch 80x80cm. :-)
and the collection included pdp11's, Control Data diskpack drives,
microvaxes, SGI's, IBM RT machines, an IBM system/36 and a lot more
heavy stuff.
We rounded up around 15 people and a lot of transporting hardware an we
managed to get everything out in one day. :-)
To have a souvenir of the occasion we set up some camera's taking a
picture every 5 seconds and made a nice film:
Edited video: http://vimeo.com/ramdyne/dndexodus
Raw footage interior: https://vimeo.com/103064036
Raw footage exterior: http://hack42.sa007.nl/exodus/timelapse.avi and
https://vimeo.com/103081276
Info page: https://hack42.nl/wiki/DND_Kelder_leeghalen
We are still repackaging things and havent even started to look in
boxed. :-(
--
Met vriendelijke Groet,
Simon Claessen
hack42.nl
