On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 10:22 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: On 08/09/2012 08:50 PM, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote: Why is SIMH so slow though? Because it's extremely portable with no architecture-specific assembler assists. As I won't use anything that's NOT portable, I consider it to be screaming fast. I don't know about Hercules, but dtcyber is all C code, and it seems to be substantially faster than simh. ...and it also only emulates one architecture. Simh has an underlying emulation framework upon which emulations for many disparate architectures can be constructed. There is (as I'm sure you know) always a cost to this sort of flexibility. At least that's my take on it. VAX is a "big" architecture and instruction set to emulate. That's true, but that doesn't mean any one instruction is hard to emulate, it just means there's a lot of code. Well, the packed instructions, and edit, and stuff like that, sure, but when you're running NetBSD makefiles and compiles you're basically in the world of integer instructions, and those aren't particularly hard. Maybe it's time to do some code analysis and profiling. I think that's a fine idea. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA Hello! Dave did the Alpha family come in a 1U size? If so could said system be considered to be a quiet one? For example I have here a SUN UltraSPARC 5 machine who happens to be about that size and is currently working headless, and serving as my website manager (hosting entity and server for same.) it happens to be so quiet the only way I'd know that the fellow is working is that I promptly logon to the unit every few hours via SSH or bring up the site on the browser. I'm trying to find a keyboard for the fellow so I can also use it as a regular workstation, so far my regular source has not responded. What I'd really like to do is to find another one, plus a keyboard, and a terminal server that SUN made once. Having obtained them I would simply configure Number Two as a webserver with its console out line connected to that TS unit. Number One would become a regular workstation. Yeah I know gang, mildly off topic, but here goes. Any clews regarding that Alpha? Oh and if you can track down a keyboard or even that Alpha or the other two please contact off list for that address and other things. And Sampsa? Right now your surrounded by a collection of dangerous individuals straight out of Doctor Who plus seven Daleks..... ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."