Re: KA655 Kernel Compile and Corrupt Object Files

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>>>>> Josh wrote: TL;DR: gcc produces corrupted kernel object files on
>>>>> a diskless, hardware KA$
>>>> Mouse wrote: Do you have any particular reason to believe the
>>>> hardware is not broken?
>>> Josh wrote: Good question... [...]
> Honestly, while possible, I seriously doubt there is a problem with
> the CPU module.  If something was wrong there, I would expect way
> more things to be noticed than just some object files being corrupted
> while writing.

In general, so would I.  But I look at my VAX emulator and I notice how
many instructions are unimplemented because I've never seen them used,
and it seems plausible to me that there are a few instructions that are
used only rarely, possibly only within the compiler (at least for the
use cases tried so far).

Also relevant is that the brokenness appears nondeterminstic.  While it
could be a mandelbug in the toolchain, I would expect something this
blatant to be consistent if it's software.

And, when a simulated VAX doesn't exhibit the symptom?  That
substantially increase the plausibility of hardware issues, to me.

Not necessarily CPU issues.  It could be, for example, flaky RAM.  But
my preferred suspect is hardware trouble of some sort.

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