This configures SIMH to simulate a VAX with a whopping 256 MB of memory, a RA92 1.5GB disk, a CD-ROM unit to hold CD1 of your CD-ROM set, another CD-ROM unit to boot from, and a DELQA Qbus Ethernet controller. You'll need to replace bge0 with the name of the network interface in your machine. You also might need to replace /dev/rcd0c with the name of the raw device corresponding to your real CD-ROM unit.set cpu 256m at nvr openbsd.nvram deposit rq qtime 1000000 set rq0 ra92 at rq0 openbsd.ra0.disk set rq1 cdrom at rq1 /dev/rcd0c set rq2 cdrom at rq2 floppy51.fs at xq0 bge0 boot cpu exit
By default pressing ^E will interrupt the emulation; if you're accustomed to the emacs editing keys, you might like to remap this (e.g. adding set console wru=1e sets it to ^6, ascii code 0x1e). If you prefer a larger disk, replace set rq0 ra92 with e.g. set rq0 rauser=15000 (where 15000 is the size in MB). See the SIMH documentation for more details.
Copy 5.1/vax/floppy51.fs to the location of your OpenBSD/vax SIMH environment. Now fire up SIMH. At the boot prompt you should type boot dua2:, after which SIMH should boot into the normal OpenBSD installation program:
After you've finished the installation, restart SIMH, but now type:# simh-vax openbsd.simh VAX simulator V3.8-1 NVR: buffering file in memory Eth: opened bge0 Loading boot code from /usr/local/lib/simh/vax/ka655x.bin KA655-B V5.3, VMB 2.7 Performing normal system tests. 40..39..38..37..36..35..34..33..32..31..30..29..28..27..26..25.. 24..23..22..21..20..19..18..17..16..15..14..13..12..11..10..09.. 08..07..06..05..04..03.. Tests completed. >>>boot dua2: (BOOT/R5:0 DUA2 2.. -DUA2 1..0.. >> OpenBSD/vax boot [1.15] << >> Press enter to autoboot now, or any other key to abort: 0 > boot bsd
to boot from your newly installed disk image. You'll need a little patience upon your first boot, since generating the SSH host keys can take quite a bit of time. But it will eventually boot through and present you with a friendly login prompt:>>>boot dua0:
When you are done installing any additional packages, you might want to remove the lines referring to your real CD-ROM unit and floppy51.fs from your openbsd.simh file.OpenBSD/vax (noname.my.domain) (console) login:
Enjoy!