Hercules 2.10 announcement

Jay Maynard

Feb 5, 2001

The first public release of Hercules that supports the z/Architecture, as
well as the present System/370 and ESA/390, is now available. Hercules 2.10
contains many improvements over the last version 1 release, 1.71, as well as
preliminary support for the 64-bit z/Architecture. In particular, 2.10
provides support for the TUN/TAP network interface built into the Linux 2.4
kernel and available for other versions. The specific changes are too
voluminous to list here; check out the What's New page and the CHANGES file
in the source distribution for details.

The one major operational difference between 1.71 and 2.10 is a new
configuration file statement:
ARCHMODE S/370|ESA/390|ESAME
This specifies the architecture that Hercules will operate in. The default
is ESA/390, so for 370-mode OSes, you should add this statement to your .cnf
files before running 2.10. This replaces the separate executables
hercules-370 and hercules-390 with one, named hercules. You can also specify
the architecure to be used at execution time, by way of the archmode control
panel command, which takes the same operands as the config file statement.

Hercules 2.10 has one outstanding problem Valery Pogonchenko pointed out,
and that I have not been able to entirely fix yet. On a sufficiently fast
machine, IPLing MVT will produce the complaint
IEA100I INTERVAL TIMER IS NOT WORKING
before the ENTER SYSTEM PARAMETERS prompt. ReIPLing a few times may clear
the problem, or it may not. The error arises because Hercules is fast enough
that the interval timer does not update during the execution of a
25000-count BCT * loop. If you encounter this problem, and reIPLing does not
avoid it, then you can do the following:
1) Start Hercules. Connect your console sessions as normal.
2) Set a breakpoint at 7F705E. (Assuming you're using the same gen I am,
that is, in an 8-megabyte system. That address is in the nucleus
initialization program, loaded at the top of memory; adjust as needed if
you're using a different emulated machine memory size.)
3) IPL the residence volume.
4) When the breakpoint is hit and Hercules halts, wait a few seconds, then
enter the start command.
MVT should IPL normally.

6:05 am

Hercules 2.11 announcement

Jay Maynard

Feb 11, 2001

What's new in release 2.11

Release date: 10 February 2001
* LFPC/SFPC/STFPC IEEE floating point instructions (Jan Jaeger)
* Fixes to CMPSC (Bernard van der Helm)
* Extended translation fac. 2 (PKA/PKU/UNPKA/UNPKU) (Roger Bowler)
* Divide logical (DL/DLR/DLG/DLGR) instructions (Vic Cross)
* Display instruction operands (Roger Bowler)
* Fix to load_psw (Roger Bowler)
* Add hercules.rc initialization file (Willem Konynenberg)
* Fix SIE host interrupt IA backup (Jan Jaeger)
* Fix SSKE RCP index error (Jan Jaeger)
* TP instruction (Roger Bowler)
* Tape datachaining patch (Brandon Hill)
* Patch to bypass Cygwin stack problem (service.c) (Greg Smith)
* Fixes for windows port (Volker Bandke)
* SSK/ISK/RRB fix for 2K storage keys (Valery Pogonchenko and Jan
Jaeger)
* TRAP2 TRAP4 and RP instructions (Jan Jaeger)
* Varous fixes for panel.c (Roger Bowler)
* Interval Timer fix (Bob Abeles)
* Deconfigure CPU's in release_config() (Greg Smith)
* Change panel break command to 64 bit (Jan Jaeger)
* Add ALCGR, SLBGR, ALCG, SLBG, ALCR, SLCR, ALC, SLB, AGF, ALGF,
SGF, SGFR, AGFR, RRL, RRLG, MSGF, MSGFR, SLGFR instructions (Jan
Jaeger)
* Fix MVCLE instruction where op2 len > op1 len (Jan Jaeger)
* Fix various sign/casting problems in esame.c (Jan Jaeger)
* Change constant type in cmpsc.c to prevent warning (Jan Jaeger)
* Fix S/370 interval timer (Valery Pogonchenko and Jay Maynard)
* Correct sign on LLILH (Jan Jaeger)

Both Linux and Windows distributions are available at the Hercules web page.

4:03 am

Release 2.12 announcement

Jay Maynard

May 8, 2001

It's finally here. The official 2.12 release has been posted to the Hercules
page at http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules, at least for the Linux versions.
(The Windows version will be added as soon as I get a good build from
somewhere.) The changes ar very, very numerous, including a ton of bug
fixes, especially in the area of compressed CKD DASD support; a host of
subtle emulation bugs found by Paul Leisy (who I'd like to thank for putting
in a LOT of effort!); bug fixes to the compression routines, found by Greg
Smith and Bernard van der Helm; out-of-the-box Linux 2.4 TUN/TAP support by
Willem Konynenberg (did I spell it right this time? :-); multiple file
support for the card reader, and padding of EBCDIC input files if needed;
and many, many others.

This version should correct a lot of longstanding problems people have been
reporting. I strong encourage you to grab a copy and give it a whirl.

I'll post again when I have the Windows version available.

If you're using CVS, this version can be fetched by using the flag "-r
rel_2_12" to the cvs co or cvs update commands.

4:45 am

Hercules 2.13 announcement

Jay Maynard

Jul 6, 2001

Hercules 2.13 for Linux is now available at the Hercules home page, at
http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules . The Windows version will be added as soon
as it's available. Improvements in the new release include Vic Cross's CTCT
support for Hercules-to-Hercules CTCAs, support for 9345 DASD, a new
parameter on device definiitions for card readers that allows multiple files
to be concantenated without requiring manual intervention, and a whole host
of fixes to various instruction emulations, most notably CMPSC (Compression
Call). Greg Smith swears the last compressed CKD DASD bug is gone, too, and
that seems to be borne out by experience; I've found no problems in my
limited testing, and have seen no reports of any.

There are two known problems:
1) Missing interrupts on CTCI and vmnet CTCAs at shutdown time. No known
fix; if this is a problem, you might want to consider staying with 2.12,
which does not have the problem.
2) Segmentation faults on shutdown in Windows. This may or may not affect
you, and in any case is relatively harmless, as it occurs at the very end of
the shutdown process, after all devices are detached.

There's also a bug in the Cygwin 1.3.2 libraries that affects Hercules. The
symptom is a severe handle leak that consumes system resources with every
keystroke. Volker Bandke, Greg Smith, and Fish are working diligently on a
fix and/or a workaround. It is not expected to require a change in Hercules
itself, at least at this stage of the game.

Those of you using CVS may get the new release by doing
cvs update -r rel_2_13
The few fixes in 2.13 that aren't in the main tree will be added in the next
day or so.

5:17 am