[Info-vax] New guide for hobbyists, OpenVMS 8.4 installation with networking on AXPbox (modern fork of es40)

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Monday, 9 November 2020 11:16:51 UTC, Remy van Elst  wrote:
> Op maandag 9 november 2020 om 12:08:24 UTC+1 schreef Jan-Erik Söderholm:
> > Den 2020-11-09 kl. 12:02, skrev Remy van Elst: 
> > > Op maandag 9 november 2020 om 12:00:36 UTC+1 schreef Jan-Erik Söderholm: 
> > >> Den 2020-11-09 kl. 11:33, skrev Joukj: 
> > >>> Remy wrote: 
> > >>>> Back in 2018 I was trying to run OpenVMS inside es40, but that 
> > >>>> was quite unstable. Now Tomáš Glozar has forked es40 to axpbox 
> > >>>> and notified me about it, it installs OpenVMS without crashing. I wrote a 
> > >>>> bit on axpbox here: 
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> https://raymii.org/s/blog/Exciting_OpenVMS_Alpha_emulation_news_es40_has_been_forked_to_axpbox.html 
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> I made a few contributions to the codebase, a few other patches floating 
> > >>>> around es40 forks, for example to make netbsd boot, and wrote some wiki 
> > >>>> pages on network setup. 
> > >>>> For anyone that wants to give OpenVMS 8.4 on Alpha a spin, now that 
> > >>>> VSI has a hobbyist program, here's my guide how to do that: 
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Installing_OpenVMS_8.4_Alpha_in_AXPbox_with_networking.html 
> > >>>> 
> > >>> 
> > >>> Thanks very much for writing the tutorials, they were very helpfull. 
> > >>> BTW form the examples/screenshots given, may I assume that you are also 
> > >>> located in the Netherlansds?) 
> > >>> 
> > >>>> 
> > >>>> One advantage of this is that you are not limited by the resource quotas 
> > >>>> in FreeAXP and can run multiple instances on one computer, so a cluster 
> > >>>> should technically be possible. 
> > >>> 
> > >>> And that it runs on Linux and not on Windhoos. 
> > >> So this "axpbox" not run on Windows? That is a direct show stopper... 
> > > 
> > > It runs on Windows, Mac OS and linux (anywhere you have a reasonable C++ 11 compiler, GCC, Clang or MSVC)
> > OK, fine! But you have to build/link it locally on your own Windows system?
> 
> Yes. I'll add an issue to add a pre-built release for downloading, that's a good idea.
> 
> Building isn't that much work, install the free version of visual studio, enter the github url, click build. that should be it.
> Same on linux, install development packages, checkout repository, run cmake to build.

This may be a silly question, but does the Linux host in this 
picture have to be Linux AMD64/x86? (Don't quite see why, but...).

And if a competent ARM Linux will do, has anybody thought about (or 
succeeded with) doing this on the latest Raspberry-Pi-in-a-Keyboard,
either with Raspberry Pi OS or some other ARM-flavoured Linux?

$70/£70 for the base model with 4GB memory and ~2GHz quad core ARM 
processor, just add HDMI monitor and sundries. See e.g.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/raspberry-pi-400-review
Probably not enterprise-c;ass stability yet, but for £70...

I had been wondering about trying SIMH/VAX on one of these, iirc it's 
already known to run on ARM given the right incantations, but AXPbox 
sounds much more interesting, at least as a filler-in till the real
native OpenVMS-on-ARM comes along. Or doesn't, as the case may be.

I'd offer, but just at the moment I might struggle to find the free 
time.