Hi all,
I was trying to search the "Ask the Wizard" archive, but HP seems to have screwed up the URL so that it points to HPE's OpenVMS info page, but can't find a link to the Wizard index.
Anyone know of a mirror for "Ask the Wizard" or a short cut url to the working old url or to a new HPE url?
Thanks in advance.
From: Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se>
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 01:09:24 +0200
>Interesting, as XXDP V2 have a format that appears to be pretty much the
>same as RT-11. (Including FLX being able to read it, more or less.)
Hmm. My experience (of reading XXDP V2 disks with my own code) disagrees.
And the RSX doc says that FLX supports DOS-11 disks/DECtapes (in addition
to DOS-11 magtapes which are *much* easier), which are very similar to
XXDP+ format (so maybe FLX has tweaks for the slight differences?).
John Wilson
D Bit
From: <Paul_Koning at Dell.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 18:17:11 +0000
>>I didn't even know that there was a DOS-11 disk format, but thinking about
>>it, it would seem obvious there should be one.
>
>Yes, there is, different from everything else as far as I know. I think
>the DECtape format is faintly related. Some DOS manuals may give some
>clues, but I've never looked into it or had any exposure to DOS disk file
>system internals.
Yes it's in the manuals, and the (commented) source code to PUTR.COM
has some explanation too. I believe the DECtape and disk formats are
the same, except that the MFD1 is located at block 1 on disks and
block 64. (^O100) on DECtapes.
The DOS/BATCH disk format is also used by XXDP before V2. XXDP V2 has
its own similar (but different) format.
John Wilson
D Bit
> Isn't the documentation wrong, since it says 2621?
... copy/paste/transcription error on my part. The file clearly
says 2021. Copied sort of by hand from a .pdf file...
> Either way, I believe this field was expanded to be interpreted as
> unsigned later than your code and documentation, meaning it will work a
> while longer. However, I doubt that the TOPS-10 code have been updated
> for that. Something for you to do?
As I said, the text indicates that the (monitor) code stops working in
2021, but the code does in fact allow one more bit, no change needed here.
The thing to wonder about is a piece of (ehum) software called NML.
Written in the wonderful language BLISS. (sarcasm)
> There is a similar issue with FAL, where the date field was also
> extended to be unsigned. RSX only got these updated in 1999 in the code.
> I'm sure VMS also have this. But for other OSes, I have no idea.
Time for some experimentation.
> Johnny
--Johnny
Okay,
Now it's static so long as I stop switching routers...;)
50.131.218.138 is now handled by a 7301.
--
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
When browsing the Tops-10 sources I stumbled onto this (d36com.mac):
NMXTIM:
IFN FTOPS10,<
MOVE T1,DATE## ;GET CURRENT UDT (IN DAYS,,FRACTION)
MOVE T2,TIME## ;GET CURRENT TIME (IN JIFFIES SINCE MIDNIGHT)
LSH T1,-^D17 ;TRUNCATE TO NUMBER OF HALF DAYS.
SUBI T1,124210_1 ;CONVERT DAYS SINCE 1858 TO DAYS SINCE 1977
MOVE T3,[^D60*^D60*^D12]
IMUL T3,TICSEC## ;SECONDS SINCE HALF-DAY
TRNE T1,1 ;IS THIS THE SECOND HALF OF A DAY?
SUB T2,T3 ;YES, RECORD SECONDS SINCE HALF-DAY
IDIV T2,TICSEC## ;CONVERT JIFFIES INTO SECONDS.
IMULI T3,^D1000 ;CONVERT TO NUMBER OF MILLISECONDS*TICSEC
IDIV T3,TICSEC## ;CONVERT TO NUMBER OF MILLISECONDS.
SKIPL T2 ;MAKE SURE WE HAVE A POSITIVE NUMBER OF SECONDS
TDNE T1,[XWD -1,600000] ;MAKE SURE NO DATE OVERFLOW
BUG.(HLT,COM911,D36COM,SOFT,<The date is past 9 November 2021>,,<
Cause: The 2 byte julian half-day field in an event message is limited
to 9 november 2021. The routine above has calculated the julian
half-day, and has found that it overflowed.
I doubt very much that the date itself has really gone past 2021.
Probably someone smashed an AC or the routine to get the time
from the monitor is returning junk.
>)
RET
>;END IFN FTOPS10
This made me search for some documentation, and I found aa-k181a-tk
which said, amongst other things:
EVENT TIME Is the source node date and time of event
processing. Consists of:
+----------+--------+-------------+
! JULIAN ! SECOND ! MILLISECOND !
! HALF DAY ! ! !
+----------+--------+-------------+
where:
JULIAN HALF DAY (2) : B = Number of half days
since 1 Jan 1977 and
before 9 Nov 2621
(0-32767). For example,
the morning of Jan 1,
1977 is 0.
SECOND (2) : B = Second within current
half day (0-43199).
MILLISECOND (2) : B = Millisecond within
current second (0-999).
If not supported, high
order bit is set,
remainder are clear, and
field is not printed
when formatted for
output.
Some observations/questions:
* The code in Tops-10 actually checks for the half day value beeing
not more than 16 bits, i.e. it will not trigger until 2066. This
means that I will consinder it a typical case of SEP when it does.
* I have no idea what will happen when the date goes past 9-Nov-2021,
i.e. when the sixteen bit field gets the sign bit set and possibly
some software somewhere goes belly up. Maybe we should try to do a
controlled test?
* Will this be/become a problem? What to do about it?
--Johnny
Hi All,
After some effort, I got an PDP-11/93 (simh) online running RSX-11M+ 4.6
bl 87. It is reachable as ROJIN (1.542) and I've configured a guest
account on this box if anyone is interested in nosing around on this
sytem. Do note, I just have about 2 weeks of experience with rsx, so be
gentle with me :)
Kind Regards,
Lex van Roon
--
LRO-RIPE | 570DE0BE | 9BF5 922E AF87 8584 E9CA C3AD C508 39A9 570D E0BE
Hey guys,
I'm seeking some hardware technical expertise.
I have a DEC 3000-300L and have a CRT monitor (with RGB & SOG).
The monitor is over 13 years old and I'm not sure how much longer it will last.
A friend stumbled upon a Sun LSA 800 flat panel monitors at a resale shop.
Online search show the LSA 800 does Sync on Green, but not find details on resolution and freq.
Anyone know if the Sun LSA 800 support the resolution and freq of the Dec?
I'd like to swap out the CRT with the Sun LSA 800, but don't want to pay the shipping and then find out the Sun isn't compatible.
Thanks
Mike
Hi,
Can I get my IP updated to 50.131.150.11 please? This should be static-enough. ;)
GRE is being forwarded right through to a cisco 2620 I picked up at weirdstuff along with some weird stuff. ;)
Some people might have noticed that Mim.Update.UU.SE have not been
reachable the last week. This is because the University have decided to
put all systems behind firewalls, which hurt the Update computer club
pretty bad.
For people who would still like to get access to Mim, I have now setup
telnet to listen to a second port in addition to port 23. Mim is now
accessible by telnet on port 10023 as well, which is not blocked by an
firewall.
In addition, I also added ftp on port 10021 in addition to port 21, so
people who would like to get to files on Mim by ftp can do so again.
This also prompted me to make a couple of improvements to BQTCP/IP for
RSX. The changes are that the telnet daemon can now be set to listen to
an alternative port, and can also listen to several ports.
I also added the capability to the ftp client to specify which port to
connect to.
The TCP/IP package can be found at ftp://mim.update.uu.se:10021/
However, if you have the previous version of TCP/IP for RSX, you cannot
access this address, as the previous version ftp client did not accept a
port argument. So it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing. But using some
intermediate system, you can get the disk image to the machine, and
install the new version, after which things will be possible to use more
or less as before.
One more thing: NEMA, my very tiny EMACS clone for RSX, have gotten a
lot of work done lately, and if anyone is interested in this tool, I
really recommend that you fetch the latest version. A port to VMS is
also included with the files now, courtesy of Erik Olufsen.
NEMA is available at ftp://nema at mim.update.uu.se:10021/
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
