idleloop.vdisk and Idle loop program

Hi !

Does anyone know if idleloop.visk is still available ? It looks like Personal Alpha cannot be downloaded anymore, or I couldn't find it on the Stromasys site.

I also saw that someone here mentionned the product / patch was available as a download at HP, and I checked under patch management (I have a support contract) and could not find it.

Any help appreciated - my CPU is so busy and needs some rest !

Thanks

After searching some more, I found this website jonesrh.info which gives a lot of info regarding Alpha virtualization and DCL implementations on Linux/Windows. He explains PersonalAlpha can still be gotten from the Wayback Machine and he has a link to it on his site.

Anyone looking for the idle loop can look up there to find and download it. Pick any of the 3 available versions (32 bits, DS10 or DS20), install the software, and you will find a file named idleloop.visk in the installation directory. This software is suitable for use with FreeAXP.

I'm currently running FreeAXP v2.64.595. So I went into the Virtual Alpha COnfiguration Utility, added a new disk device to the configuration ad selected idleloop.visk as the image file. Upon reboot the server had a new disk that could be mounted with $ MOUNT/OVER=ID ddcu:. The package is contained in ddcu:[IDLE012]SRI-AXPVMS-IDLE-V0102--1.PCSI;1

Install with $ PRODUCT INSTALL IDLE and voilà! The host CPU usage will drop instantly, just as the installation completes. I really noticed my server's fan quiet down immediately. Before, I had the FreeAXP process on the host server running at close to 100% (of 1 CPU) non-stop, and now it's down to 0.01%. Once I start using VMS to do some work it goes up as normal, and goes back down to idle when the VMS server has no workload again.

It really worked like a charm for me.

Thanks to jonesrh for providing that useful information and helping me complete a successful installation of FreeAXP.

If anyone ever comes here, and is running Stromasys PersonalAlpha, do you also observe that the gain from running IDLELOOP is minimal ? The same running on FreeAXP gives much better results. This is odd as it was designed by Stromasys...
<img src='../images/smiley/sad.gif' alt='smiley'>

This may be a lifesaver for our freeAXP instance.
The OS hosting our freeAXP has been de-supported by our continuous-backup vendor.
After moving freeAXP to an existing supported server, the CPU use was unacceptable.
The idle loop driver fixed that.

This past weekend, I updated my FreeAXP from a truly ancient version (1.x, I believe) to the latest/greatest 64 bit. Out of necessity, I also update the OS to the current VSI 8.4 variant for the sake of the hobbyist licenses.

In doing this, I was not able to get the IDLE kit working. Is this still viable with the current emulator and OS, or has the time for this come and goine?

The Stromasys IDLE V1.2 tool still works with FreeAXP 4.0.0.646 (just tested with OpenVMS E8.4).

But I'm pretty sure - didn't check - that you can't install it on VSI OpenVMS.

SRI-AXPVMS-IDLE-V0102--1.PCSI$DESCRIPTION has the following statements:

if (not &lt;software DEC AXPVMS VMS version minimum V6.2&gt<img src='../images/smiley/wink.gif' alt='smiley'> ;
error UNSUPP_VMS_VER ;

You could try to take the kit apart and manually move the pieces to their correct location. It might work...

Volker.<hr>