[Info-vax] X86 first boot? - A Really Stupid Question

[Simon Clubley]

On 2019-04-01, Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
> On 2019-03-31 23:58:44 +0000, Simon Clubley said:
>> 
>> Something more than the existing LRDRIVER would be nice. :-)
>
> DQDRIVER and LRDRIVER work, but they're fairly limited in their designs 
> and implementations.
>
> And being hardware drivers, the designs are somewhat obfuscated by the 
> details of the seemingly-inevitable hardware weirdnesses.
>

First, thanks to everyone for their answers.

>> 
>> When people write drivers for Itanium VMS at the moment, what 
>> information sources do they use ?
>
> The C driver book, the "step 2" driver book in the archived 
> documentation, Jamie Hanrahan's Advanced Driver Techniques book, and 
> other device drivers I've written.  And the errata that's been 
> collected.
>

So basically, we are looking at 3 sets of archived documentation
with a ad-hoc mixture of notes and acquired informal knowledge to
bring that material up to date.

>
> There do seem to be fewer third-party device drivers around.  There are 
> various potential reasons for that apparent decline.  Pragmatically, 
> USB hardware and that networking hardware can provide a fair amount of 
> what used to require a dedicated adapter or controller.
>

You may still need to write a new driver or tweak an existing driver
however, even for the USB stuff.

It would be nice to have user-mode support, especially for the lower
bandwidth hardware.

> Wouldn't surprise me to learn that we'll have to work with VSI 
> directly, at least for the first wad of third-party device drivers 
> written for OpenVMS x86-64.  That was the case with the OpenVMS Itanium 
> port and the "step 1" device driver era.
>
> All fodder for VSI to ruminate upon.
>

While device drivers are not exactly a major issue for a normal VMS
customer :-), this whole relying on old sources of information and
acquired knowledge is still a problem in the VMS world.

VMS (in all areas) is going to have to be easier for new people
to get onboard with if VSI want to attract new customers.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world