[Info-vax] SPM 3.4 installation issue on VMS 6.1

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2016-01-14 01:58:20 +0000, Christopher Myers said:


TL;DR: that VAX SPM V3.4 kit is too old for that OpenVMS VAX V6.1 version


Still working with that old VAXstation 3100 and TK50, et al?   
(Emulation via simh will be faster, and will work around the various 
hardware limitations of that old VAX, and can be used in combination 
with the old hardware when you just can't operate without the ringing 
and the whine of those old six-byte-sized VAX SCSI disks.)

> I've been playing around with an old VMS 6.1 consolidated distortion 
> from January 1995.

Any particular reason or background for that choice?   OpenVMS VAX V7.3 
is supported on the VAXstation 3100, if you have enough disk space.

Getting from V6.1 to V7.3 requires the VAXBACK patch before a direct 
upgrade to V7.3 will work, if you can't just wipe and install V7.3 onto 
the disk.

http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/257

> Decided to try and install VAX Software Performance Manager 3.4 on it ...

For.... (unspecified) project requirements?   For.... some sort of 
(unspecified) kernel performance issue?    For... the sheer jollies 
(apparently?) involved?

> ...and it failed with all this:
> 
> %LINK-I-UDFSYM,         BOO$GL_SRPSPLIT
> %LINK-I-UDFSYM,         SGN$GL_SRPCNTV
> %LINK-I-UDFSYM,         SGN$GL_SRPSIZE
> ...
> I've tried setting the symbols myself, using BOO$GL_SRPSPLIT == 0 for 
> example, but that didn't change anything.

Since those are kernel Small Request Packet values that SPM will be 
looking for from SYSGEN SGN$ and from the bootstrap BOO$ storage, 
messing around in the linker won't help resolve the underlying 
requirements for SPM.

> Also tried setting the time in to something before Y2K, but nope.

Y2K bugs do not look like this in OpenVMS in general, and Y2K bugs — 
those that were not simply cosmetic — were quite rare in OpenVMS.

> SYSGEN values are above what the installation guide says SPM requires.

What OpenVMS VAX versions are listed for the SPM installation?

> So I'd thought I'd ask here and see what the folks on here think.  If 
> someone happens to have SPM 3.3 easily available I could try that.

Your version of VAX SPM is looking for kernel symbols which do not 
exist in the underlying OpenVMS VAX version.   The kernel did not 
change incompatibly from V6.0 onward, so either your SPM is for a newer 
OpenVMS version, or this is some version of SPM for OpenVMS VAX prior 
to V6.0, and something changed at V6.0 or earlier.   Check either the 
installation guide or the software product description (SPD) for 
Software Performance Monitor version 3.4 — which, being an ancient 
version on an ancient architecture — might not be easy to find.   
Oddly, it is available.  
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/info/SP2756/SP2756PF.PDF   It's for OpenVMS 
VAX V5.4.  Might work through V5.5-2H4, but clearly not much later.   
Your OpenVMS VAX version is, somewhat unusually, too new for this 
software, so look for some newer version of SPM, or one of the 
replacement products since SPM and the rest were sold off IIRC, or wipe 
your disk and install a late-V5-era version.

Out of curiosity, what is it with the folks messing around with VAX 
lately, and with increasingly ancient versions of same?   Some blog 
somewhere got y'all interested?   Okay... If you don't know OpenVMS and 
are exploring it and/or are one of the retro-computing folks or OS 
Tourists or whatever y'all are calling yourself — welcome to the 
newsgroup, please visit the comp.os.vms newsgroup gift shop! — then get 
to OpenVMS VAX V7.3, or expect to be looking for parts and docs and the 
rest — bits that are long gone, in more than a few cases.   Or better, 
get to OpenVMS Alpha V8.4 via hardware or emulation, or get to OpenVMS 
I64.   OpenVMS VAX has a large variety of issues, not the least of 
which is that it's most of twenty years old at the earliest, hasn't 
been particularly updated in the 1990s post V6.0, and is two and soon 
three architectures back and three owner names back, and which in 
aggregate means that knowledge isn't common and the necessary reference 
materials aren't necessarily available.   Or yet easier for those that 
are getting started with OpenVMS, get yourself a (free!) login on the 
decuserve OpenVMS server, and explore OpenVMS and DCL there, without 
having to deal with installations and product compatibility and arcana 
such as SPM...   To access decserve, telnet to decuserve.org and follow 
the bouncing ball,




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