VAX Architecture (was KA620)

Michael> OK, I've already figured myself that all the really Michael> important "what is a VAX by definition and how to build one" Michael> stuff *is* in the published VARMs, so my project of building Michael> a new VAX is not stuck waiting for KGB to pry STD 032 out of Michael> DEC. I fully understand the VAX Architecture (and have a Michael> solid rigorous spec definition) based on the 3 VARMs I have One nice thing about DEC is that it took rigorous architecture definition very seriously starting with the VAX (and, earlier still, in networking). There aren't many other companies where that is true -- that you can take the spec and build what it says and have it be correct and complete. By the way, if you have the right connections around Russia, you could track down the people who built the VAX clones back in the days of the USSR. I believe STIMTI in Vilnius was involved... Michael> I've never heard about AXE from you, but I have heard about Michael> it from other sources. Yes, that would really be nice. AXE was the tool that DEC used to verify that a new VAX had the CPU done completely right. They found that a random test like that, run long enough, was far more rigorous than any conventional diagnostic. Michael> Interestingly, however, it appears that at some point there Michael> were diagnostic programs available to the general public Michael> that, judging from the descriptions, apparently do similar Michael> instruction testing, though they were presumably intended Michael> for troubleshooting broken hardware rather than for Michael> validating new implementations. The KA820 Technical Manual, Michael> for example, refers to these: ... Michael> The descriptions of these diagnostics sound very much like Michael> AXE. Any idea where to find these diags? AXE isn't a diagnostic, it's an implementation verifier. The others definitely are diagnostics, intended to find specific problems in the field quickly. AXE you run for weeks, and if it finds a problem you have to do a bunch of digging to find out what the problem details are. paul