14 Mar
2018
14 Mar
'18
2:43 p.m.
On Mar 14, 2018, at 12:40 PM, geneb via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Wed, 14 Mar 2018, Zane Healy wrote:
I?ve been using the HP SFF systems. I think the i5 I got specifically to run SIMH is a
6300. It?s an i5-3470 3.2Ghz system with 4 GB RAM. I had to add a hard drive, but had an
old 500GB drive laying around. That?s plenty big to backup and migrate the data on my
Compaq XP1000 running OpenVMS 8.3 to. It?s not a modern system, but it?s newer by far
than any of my real VMS hardware. To me the key thing is, it only cost $75.
I also have two other HP SFF systems, both are 8200?s one is an i5, the other an i7. The
i7 is the ESXI system I mentioned. The VM running SIMH is able to outperform SIMH on the
HP 6300 SFF box. I initially had lots of issues with clock drift on OpenVMS running under
ESXI, but it turns out that was due to my having throttled the VM itself. Once I removed
that, everything is fine. I?ve since switched to using CPU idling under SIMH, to reduce
the load on the host CPU.
In spite of having a website on emulating DEC HW, I?ve resisted emulating the VAX, as I
didn?t see the point. We?ve reached the point where even a RPI running SIMH outperforms
most of my VAXen, and the i5 and i7 based systems running SIMH can outperform all of my
VAXen. I just wish the hobbyist options for Alpha emulation were better.
I may consider picking up another HP SFF running a supported version of Windows, and then
trying the Alpha emulation on it.
Zane
I?m currently using Ubuntu (I?ve run SIMH a lot
of different UNIX & Linux flavors over the years).
With the ESXI and RPi systems, I?m using the version of SIMH/VAX that Ubuntu provides.
With the i5, I upgraded to current to try to resolve some issues. The i5 is serving up
several large drives, and a couple small Shadowsets that it shares with another system.
The Shadowsets are for Cluster Files, and critical data. It?s also my cluster tape server
(virtual tapes).
There can be issues, but I think the ones I?ve run into are more a OpenVMS/VAX v7.3 &
OpenVMS/Alpha v8.3 clustering issue. Backing up an ODS-5 disk from a VAX isn?t a good
idea, but it seems fine to back it up from the Alpha, to a tape drive on the VAX.
What model of HP i5 did you get? I'm entertaining the idea of getting another R710,
but they're still ~$250 plus drives.
tnx.
g.