[Info-vax] The Road to V9.0

[clair.grant@vmssoftware.com]

On Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 8:16:04 AM UTC-4, clairg... at gmail.com wrote:
> I should have my 9.0 Proof Points ready by tomorrow. Here is a sneak preview from yesterday's build. For First Boot we only loaded the images we needed and skipped the rest. The following is the complete, as in Real Boot, list plus some we currently load via VMS$SYSTEM_IMAGES.DATA which are entries 44 through 4E and include some debug tools plus images we are currently loading as execlets and will soon be obsoleted by their corresponding normal user images which get loaded dynamically as needed.
> 
> Loaded Image List:
> 
> Seq  Image Name
> 64   [SYS$LDR]NT_EXTENSION.EXE
> 62   [SYS$LDR]VMS_EXTENSION.EXE
> 5E   [SYS$LDR]DDIF$RMS_EXTENSION.EXE
> 5C   [SYS$LDR]RECOVERY_UNIT_SERVICES.EXE
> 58   SYS$SRDRIVER
> 56   SYS$DMDRIVER
> 54   SYS$TTDRIVER
> 52   SYS$ISA_SUPPORT
> 50   SYS$PCI_SUPPORT
> 4E   <SYS$LDR>TR$DEBUG
> 4C   <SYS$LDR>TQE$DEBUG
> 4A   <SYS$LDR>SYSINITX
> 48   <SYS$LDR>SYS$LOGINOUT
> 46   <SYS$LDR>SYS$DIRECTORY
> 44   <SYS$LDR>IO$DEBUG
> 42   DCLTABLES
> 40   ACME
> 3E   SYS$MME_SERVICES
> 3C   SYSLDR_DYN
> 3A   SYS$IPC_SERVICES
> 38   MULTIPATH
> 36   SYS$UTC_SERVICES
> 34   SYS$TRANSACTION_SERVICES
> 30   SYSLICENSE
> 2E   MESSAGE_ROUTINES
> 2C   SYS$VM
> 2A   SYSGETSYI
> 28   SECURITY_MON
> 26   IMAGE_MANAGEMENT
> 24   RMS
> 22   F11BXQP
> 20   LOGICAL_NAMES
> 1E   SHELL8K
> 1C   LOCKING
> 1A   PROCESS_MANAGEMENT_MON
> 18   SYSDEVICE
> 16   IO_ROUTINES_MON
> 14   EXCEPTION_MON
> 10   SYS$OPDRIVER
> 0E   SYSTEM_DEBUG
> 0C   SYSTEM_SYNCHRONIZATION_UNI
> 0A   SYSTEM_PRIMITIVES_0
> 08   SYS$ACPI
> 06   ERRORLOG
> 04   SYS$PLATFORM_SUPPORT
> 02   SYS$BASE_IMAGE
> 00   SYS$PUBLIC_VECTORS


Here is an update toward "Real Boot".

Two major facets of the execution environment need to change. First, eliminate loading everything we need as execlets and putting it all in the memory disk, but rather create a system disk and find/activate images as they are needed. Second, boot from a system disk.

As you will see in upcoming webpage updates and also in a webinar, part one has been accomplished. We have a little tidying up to do but the execlets SYSINITX, SYS$LOGINOUT, and SYS$DIRECTORY are no longer the default boot path for debugging. The normal boot path of SYSINIT, LOGINOUT, and DIRECTORY now gets us to $ DIR. What does this really mean? Images are found and loaded as needed...paging, user mode, access checks, image activation, etc. In other words, business as usual.

We are currently working on part two, the installation procedure. We have not yet created a system disk. We netboot a memory disk image from our development cluster into memory and start executing. Soon we will be netbooting an installation kit and performing a standard installation on a target system disk and booting it, which involves switching from the memory disk to the system disk during startup.