[HECnet] Apparently good news from VSI

[mark at wickensonline.co.uk]

I used FreeAXP http://www.migrationspecialties.com/FreeAXP.html to emuate an AlphaServer 1000A that I have now sold. It is windows only, which wouldn't be my first choice, but it runs well in a VM on an old HP server that I have running for various reasons including another VM running SIMH on Debian emulating a VAX 4000/90 (which thankfully I do still have). 

FreeAXP takes some configuring, especially around networking, but is well worth the effort in my opinion and now I have it configured correctly I have no issues with it.

Regarding VAX/VMS - I could be wrong but the issuing of licenses for VAX/VMS is very different from supplying the software? Maybe they can come to some agreement?

Regards, Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE <owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE> On Behalf Of Zane Healy
Sent: 22 April 2020 20:18
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Apparently good news from VSI

There is an Open Source project to emulate the Alpha, but I honestly can’t figure out where it’s at.  Here is the link to it.

https://gitlab.com/JonathanBelanger/DECaxp

Zane



> On Apr 22, 2020, at 11:23 AM, Robert Armstrong <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:
> 
>  This is good news, yes, but the problem is that there's no really good Alpha AXP simulator that I'm aware of, or at least not one that's free.  Simh can't do it at the moment.  I've used Charon-AXP and it's good, but the free version was pretty crippled and I don't even know if it still exists.  There are/were lots of other AXP simulator projects at one time - are any of them usable?
> 
>  Real Alphas are nice, but they're power hogs.  Unless you live in an area with very cheap electricity, I wouldn't plan on running one 24x7.
> 
>  Sounds like the VAX/VMS code will become "abandonware" - VSI doesn't own it, and HP doesn't want it.
> 
> Bob
>