[Info-vax] Alternative _legal_ operating systems for VAX ?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2022-01-03, Scott Dorsey <kludge at panix.com> wrote:
> Simon Clubley  <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> wrote:
>>On 2022-01-02, Scott Dorsey <kludge at panix.com> wrote:
>>> Bill Gunshannon  <bill.gunshannon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Sadly, language has little to do with it.  Too  much of the
>>>>DEC stuff is still proprietary and trade secret locked.  Last
>>>>I heard that was the reason why neither NetBSD or OpenBSD ever
>>>>had a functioning X11.
>>>
>>> Ever had a functioning X11 _server_.  The clients work just fine,
>>> it's just that the DEC framebuffers are nontrivial to develop a
>>> display server for given the available documentation.
>>
>>Someone added basic framebuffer support to simh, and it does mostly
>>work ok with VAX/VMS. It's been a while but I do remember being able
>>to get a DECwindows display running under simh (although there might
>>have been some mouse issues (I can't remember for sure)).
>
> Yes.  But it's harder the other way around.

Are you sure ?

The people who emulated the framebuffer hardware in software in simh
had to understand the framebuffer hardware well enough for the VAX/VMS
framebuffer device driver to recognise and use the emulated framebuffer.

If the public framebuffer documentation is really that limited, that
sounds like an impressive achievement to be able to emulate the
VAXstation framebuffer hardware in software well enough for VMS to
be able to start using it.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.