[Info-vax] compile for VAX 8650 system

[Chris Scheers]

Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2016-06-08, Stanley F. Quayle <stanley.f.quayle at gmail.com> wrote:
>> If you are building a system from "scratch", you will need to find
>> the VAXeln tool kit, VMS, etc. etc. But if you image all the disks
>> from the existing system to an emulator, your existing disks come over
>> with all that stuff ready to go.
>>
> 
> The problem with that is that the OP said in another post:
> 
> |The OS running on the current system is VAXELN, do you think OpenVMS will
> |still work?
> 
> IOW, he believes the VAX 8650 is the VAXELN target system, not the
> VAXELN development system so imaging that system would just get you
> the VAXELN based application binary. However, offset against that is
> John's point about the VAX 8650 not being a supported VAXELN target
> according to the SPD.
> 
> BTW, for anyone reading this who is not familiar with VAXELN, you should
> be aware that VAXELN isn't some application which is run in production
> use under VMS, VAXELN is an operating system in it's own right.
> 
> What you do is use the VAXELN toolkit under VMS to compile and link an
> VAXELN application image (which includes the VAXELN kernel) and then
> you move that image over to your target system somehow and boot the
> image on your target system.
> 
> IOW, there are _two_ systems potentially in use here: (1) the development
> system running VMS and the VAXELN development tools and (2) the target
> system which runs the generated VAXELN image.
> 
> These days, unless you are using a RTOS with self hosted tools, you do
> (1) on a machine running Linux (or Windows) and then you transfer your
> newly built RTOS image over to a different system to run it.
> 
> However, given the price of the hardware in decades past, it's not
> beyond the bounds of possibility that the VAX 8650 in question is
> a dual boot system with the VAXELN image on one disk and the development
> VMS system on another disk.
> 
> IOW, the developer at the time may have booted VMS off one disk, done
> any needed software development and then shutdown VMS and booted VAXELN
> on the same system. Given the relative prices of hardware and developer's
> time that would be a hopelessly inefficient way to develop embedded
> software these days but several decades ago the tradeoffs might have
> been very different.
> 
> Simon.

Actually, there is a third potential system: The deployment system.

You can develop on one system, then distribute the binary to one (or 
more) deployment systems that actually boot the target system(s).

Quite often, the development system and the deployment system are one 
and the same, but not necessarily.  When you have many distributed 
targets, you may have multiple distributed deployment systems.

As for VAXELN running on an 86xx, I don't know.  But I have seen it 
running on an 8800.  (With an almost unnoticeable MicroVAX II sitting 
next to it to boot it.)

-- 
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Chris Scheers, Applied Synergy, Inc.

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