[HECnet] Looking for VAX 8600 Diagnostic Supervisor (EDSAA.EXE)

[Mark Pizzolato]

Hi Bill,

On Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 11:19 AM, Bill wrote:
> The diagnostic supervisor was the same on all three in 1991 when I last ran it.
> Only difference was console media type.

Actually this isn’t true.

I've found a Vaxpax tape image which had all the components to run the Diagnostic Supervisor from a local disk on a VAX 11/780 (not floppys).

The boot process starts from VMB.EXE and based on /R5:10 being set loads DIAGBOOT.EXE rather than SYSBOOT.EXE.
DIAGBOOT.EXE then loads a CPU Model specific program that then presents the rest of the Diagnostic Supervisor experience.
The 11/780 program is ESSAA.EXE.  It was on the tape image I started from.
The 11/730 program is ENSAA.EXE.  I picked this out of a TU58 image I found somewhere.
The 11/750 program is ECSAA.EXE.  I picked this out of a TU58 image I found somewhere.
The 8600 program is EDSAA.EXE which I'm looking for.

All of these things 'could' have been packaged together, but due to the limited console media size, the unneeded stuff for the other systems probably wasn't provided.  At some point, DEC stopped shipping Diagnostics to everyone as well....  

Someone sent me the EDSAA.EXE that I was missing, so I'm good now and have a single disk image which can be booted from for each of the VAX 11/730, VAX 11/750, VAX 11/780 and VAX 8600 simulators.  The Diagnostics which run now are EVKAA (Hardware Core) and EVKAB/C/D/E.  EVKAE currently reports a problem with some argument handling in compatibility mode.   Resolution to this problem is being explored.

> You could build media with the Vaxpax tape and Exchange or flx... 

If a generic VAXPAX tape exists, then I can't seem to find it.  I would certainly like the latest VAXPAX set that included all the available systems since the versions of each diagnostic supervisor would then be consistent.  The pieces I've gotten from various places are different versions, but they do seem to work.

> You sure you aren't talking micro diags?

Nope.

- Mark

> Bill
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Pizzolato <Mark at infocomm.com>
> To: "hecnet at Update.UU.SE" <hecnet at Update.UU.SE>
> Cc: "simh at trailing-edge.com" <simh at trailing-edge.com>
> Sent: Thu, 23 Jun 2016 2:11 PM
> Subject: [HECnet] Looking for VAX 8600 Diagnostic Supervisor (EDSAA.EXE)
> 
> I've been working on rewriting parts of the VAX simulator(s) to avoid some of
> the undefined behaviors that the C language has relating to overflow and
> shifts of signed integer values.
> 
> Changing the details of how instructions are implemented comes with the
> non trivial potential to break more things than are being fixed.  To manage
> this, I've been trying to use the basic CPU diagnostics that DEC for the
> systems being simulated.  I have found the VAX Diagnostic Supervisor for the
> 11/730, 11/750 and 11/.780.  I'm missing the VAX 8600's diagnostic supervisor.
> 
> If someone knows where I can find a version of this file it would be helpful.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> - Mark
>