[Info-vax] Use SimH/VAX to boot infoserver software?

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2019-01-28 10:48:43 +0000, Jan-Erik Sderholm said:

> Den 2019-01-28 kl. 11:20, skrev David Wade:
>> On 28/01/2019 06:36, Hans Vlems wrote:
>>> That works on any model 3100, VAX and VAXstation?
>>> Hans
>>> 
>> Hans,
>>  Sorry, seem to be missing some context. This is a long thead...
>> Dave
> 
> This has been like this with posts from Hans Vlems a long time. I can 
> never see anything but the reply from Hans, no context... Maybe someone 
> can, but not I (Thunderbird and Eternal September).
> 
> Well, when looking back on Hans posts, maybe 1 out of 20-40 posts has 
> the context included.

Hans doesn't include context, and likely runs the news client in its 
treed or threaded mode.

That particular newsgroup reply was to the following posting showing 
how to extract VMB from the boot ROM.

On 2019-01-27 22:33:18 +0000, Timothy Stark said:

> You can dump 256KB rom image by using command on SRM prompt
> 
>>>> Examine /p /l /n:ffff 20040000
> 
> Note: if it uses 512KB ROMs, then use /n:1ffff instead of /n:ffff.
> 
> I will write a program to convert output to binary image file.
> 
> Tim

I don't know off-hand if all of the plethora of 3100-named VAX boxes 
presented the VMB boot ROM at that same physical address range.  If not 
all, I'd expect it'll work on a number of them, though.

That particular address range has been used for the boot ROM as far 
back as the MicroVAX II.

The MicroVAX II KA630 and MicroVAX III KA650 user's guides 
—EK-KA630-UG, EK-KA650-UG—had maps and descriptions of the physical 
address ranges used for various tasks, which might be helpful for folks 
exploring physical address space.

The later VAX and Alpha systems generally lacked technical manuals with 
these details.


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