[Info-vax] VSI OpenVMS Hobbyist Program Announced.

[Hans Bachner]

Jan-Erik Söderholm schrieb am 16.06.2019 um 13:15:
> A few quick notes from first startup.
>
> As noted before, the download was a but slower than exepected.
> No big deal with that...
>
>  From start of the downloaded EXE installer to having an logged
> in OpenVMS envrionment it took maybe 2-3 minutes.
>
> When running, it takes over 100% of one of the four cores on
> my i7-6500U 2.5 GHz Win10 laptop. Works just fine, the fan is
> spinning a little faster than usual, but apart from that the
> laptop performes as usual.

This is the way - at least most - emulators work. CHARON and AVTware 
offer programs which can be installed on OpenVMS which kind of signal 
the emulator that the Alpha CPU is idle and the emulator can release CPU 
resources.

> Some printouts (slightly compressed to avoid line breaks):
>
> [snip]
>
> $ typ sys$update:VMSINSTAL.HISTORY
> ....
> ....
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Product Information                 | Installation Information
> ------------------------------------|----------------------------------------
>
> Name | Mnemonic | Ver | Date        | Stat| IVP| Node   | Install | VALSIGN
> ------------------------------------|----------------------------------------
>
>       | CC       |  7.4| 12-MAR-2018 | S   | NA | STUDNT | SYSTEM  | VSI
>       | BASIC    |  1.8| 12-MAR-2018 | S   | NA | STUDNT | SYSTEM  | VSI
>       | CXX      |  7.4| 12-MAR-2018 | S   | NA | STUDNT | SYSTEM  | VSI
>       | DECSET   | 12.9| 12-MAR-2018 | S   | NA | STUDNT | SYSTEM  | VSI
>       | PASCAL   |  6.2| 12-MAR-2018 | F   | NA | STUDNT | SYSTEM  | VSI
> $

Despite DECset has been installed LSE seems to be missing. The remaining 
DECset products at least can be invoked, but I did not test details.

> $
> $ show lic
>
> Active licenses on node STUDNT:
>
> ------- Product ID --------    ---- Rating ----- -- Version --
> Product       Producer  Units Avail Activ Version Release    Termination
> ALPHA-LP      VSI        1050  H     0      0.0   (none)     30-SEP-2019
> ALPHA-SYSTEM  VSI          75  A     0      0.0   (none)     30-SEP-2019
> $

These are the licenses available for VSI OpenVMS Alpha. You get the same 
ones (without an expiration date) when you purchase the VSI Support Bundles.

> Then I tried to setup the network interface. Followed the "Getting
> Started" PDF manual (that is upacked into the install directory)
> and used the "Virtual Alpha Configuration Utility".
>
> Now, when trying to select a "network card" to pci11, I just get
> "Invalid adapter: ask" besides of "Dummy network" as Interface
> options.
>
> And when trying to save a new CFG file, I got some error about
> "invalid Windows filename" using the pre-configured default name.
> I had to save using a new .CFG filename (using no spaces, but I do
> not know for sure that that was the issue).

I believe the problem is that the default path for the configuration 
file is empty or nonexistent (as you found out for the remaining files 
for the emulator). Can't verify the exact reason because once you've 
entered the proper path the configuration utility seems to remember it.

> Then, the config is saved with no paths to the different files the
> emulator uses, so it would not startup. I reconfigured using explicit
> paths for all files (.NVM, .TOY, .IMG and so on) and then it started OK.
>
> So, my remaining issue now is that I cannot select one of my laptop
> network interfaces in my setup.

Not sure about this one - it seems that the MSI network driver for PCAP 
isn't properly installed. I didn't take a closer look at it, as I could 
copy the DKA0 disk image to a CHARON-AXP instance where it happily 
booted :-)

Hans.