"Carlini, Antonio" wrote:

>         The VARM describes the VAX *architecture* rather than any particular
>         implementation. It happens to throw in a few words about some of the
>         extant implementations at the time the book was published but that's
>         about it.

Even there I was disappointed. I heard Isildur praise the "nexus" concept
of the VAX architecture and nowhere (using the index) could I find mention
of the term "nexus" in the VARM. 

>         Throw in the internal busses that only made it into
>         one or two machines (NMI in the Nautilus machines,
>         MI (??) in the VAXft series) and your document is now
>         one and a half bookshelves long :-)

Well, that's to be expected with DEC documentation. You always
need several bookshelves to fit in all of those. Anyway, just to
put out some controversy, I found reading DEC stuff relatively 
unpleasant, and I like to read technical specifications. There's
a lot of repetitive stuff that could be abbreviated to make the
essential material more obvious. As an example, the VARM wastes a 
full sentence at the beginning of each optional opcode to say that 
this is an optional opcode. And they require the reader to read 
this over and over again even before they tell you what the opcode 
actually does. A simple asterisk or other sign on the margin would
have done the same job better.

>         You probably need to get hold of the VAX 6000 series
>         manuals. I think there is one that specifically discusses
>         the vector processor itself. If all you want are the instructions
>         then that is in the VAX MACRO manual online at COMPAQ's site.

Yes, we even might have some. Would it be very inappropriate to
exchange some copies of parts of those handbooks here for 
educational purpose?

regards
-Gunther

-- 
Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D.                    gschadow@regenstrief.org
Medical Information Scientist      Regenstrief Institute for Health Care
Adjunct Assistent Professor        Indiana University School of Medicine
tel:1(317)630-7960                         http://aurora.regenstrief.org