[Info-vax] Intel proposal to simplify x86-64

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2023-06-07 12:21, Neil Rieck wrote:
> On Monday, June 5, 2023 at 1:05:05 AM UTC-4, terry-... at glaver.org wrote:
> 
>> The 8600 / 8650 also had full compatibility mode (but the 8600 was originally the VAX-11/790 before being renamed).
>>
>> Work on the MicroVAX showed that infrequently-used parts of the VAX instruction set could be emulated with minor hardware assists. The same sort of thing was done with the PDP-11 instruction set. Later versions of the VAX RSX layered product implemented PDP-11 emulation for CPUs that didn't have it natively.
>>
> 
> Thanks for this. Although I began working on VAX systems in 1987 but didn't know about VAX-11/790 or that it had been renamed 8600.

If you go hunting on Bitsavers for documents about the 8600, you'll find 
some early ones that still says VAX-11/790.

> We migrated to a dual host VAX-8550 VAXcluster in 1988 and I recall one of the older guys on our team crabbing that RSX applications were no longer available. Based upon your comment it appears that our machine was missing the VAX RSX layered product. (this is something else I didn't know about until now)

It went along with the PDP-11 software itself to Mentec in 1994.
Here is the SPD: 
https://web.archive.org/web/20040408022505/http://www.mentec-inc.com/pdfs/vaxrsx.pdf

   Johnny