Skip to content

ND-211305 (ND-500/5000 System Package for SINTRAN III/VSX, version L) — Package Contents

Status: VERIFIED. Answers Q1 of ND500-L-RELEASE-RE-TASK-HANDOFF.md section 4 and closes the open task in ND500-RE-SESSION-2-HANDOFF.md Item D.

Source

User-reported directory listing from floppy image 211305B02-XX-01D, obtained by copying/listing the floppy directly (2026-07-09). This is primary evidence — a live listing of the actual distribution floppy, not derived from the release doc.

File listing

# User File Type Pages (octal) Bytes
000 FLOPPY-USER ND-500-MON-J04 :PROG 000174 253356
001 FLOPPY-USER SWAPPER-K01 :DSEG 000153 218117
002 FLOPPY-USER SWAPPER-K01 :PSEG 000023 38161
003 FLOPPY-USER PLACE-1BANK-C01 :BRF 000005 10127
004 FLOPPY-USER PLACE-2BANK-C01 :BRF 000006 10281
005 FLOPPY-USER PLACE-BIG-1B-C01 :BRF 000021 34745
006 FLOPPY-USER PLACE-BIG-2B-C01 :BRF 000022 36236
007 FLOPPY-USER PLACE-SML-1B-C01 :BRF 000004 7136
008 FLOPPY-USER PLACE-SML-2B-C01 :BRF 000004 7928

Observations

  • All files live under user FLOPPY-USER on the floppy (not SYSTEM) — matches the general BPUN/floppy-file convention noted in ../../Installation/OS/research/HDD-IMAGE-FINDINGS.md section 6 ("Floppy/util :BPUN -> (FLOPPY-USER)"), though these are :PROG/:DSEG/:PSEG/:BRF, not :BPUN.
  • Only one Monitor file (ND-500-MON-J04:PROG) and one Swapper pair (SWAPPER-K01:PSEG/:DSEG) — no per-CPU-model variants, confirming the release doc's "version J04 or later" / "version K" statement (lines 2721, 3547-3551) maps to exactly these files (J04, K01).
  • Six Place Library :BRF variants, not one: PLACE-1BANK-C01, PLACE-2BANK-C01, PLACE-BIG-1B-C01, PLACE-BIG-2B-C01, PLACE-SML-1B-C01, PLACE-SML-2B-C01. PLACE-BIG-2B-C01.BRF is the variant already opened in Ghidra by ND500-PLACE-LIBRARY-C9-FINDINGS.md (confirmed there: ND-100 object code, language ND-100:BE:16, not ND-500 domain code). UNVERIFIED/ASSUMPTION: the 1BANK/2BANK split likely mirrors the bank-count distinction seen in other ND-100 language products (e.g. the Pascal J worked example in ../../Installation/Software/INSTALL-METHODOLOGY.md section 5, where the compiler is a two-bank program needing PASCAL-2LIB); BIG/SML likely correspond to a full-diagnostics build vs a minimal build. Neither pairing is confirmed by any source read — do not treat as fact.
  • No explicit copy/install command exists in the release doc for the Place Library files. The release doc (../Release-Documentation/ND-860230-6-EN Sintran III - Release Information - L-Version.md, lines 733-741) only gives @COPY-FILE commands for the Monitor and Swapper. UNVERIFIED how/whether the Place Library :BRF files are separately copied, or whether they are already linked into ND-500-MON-J04:PROG at build time (in which case no separate install step is needed for them at all — this would explain their absence from the release doc's copy-command list). Not confirmed by disassembly.
  • No MIC-5xxx microcode file was present in this floppy image — consistent with the release doc treating ND-5000 microcode as a separate diskette (section 1.2 of the task handoff), not part of ND-211305 itself.

Live-system confirmation (2026-07-09)

Copying ND-500-MON-J04:PROG from this floppy and running @ND-500 on a live L system worked — the Monitor loaded and printed its banner:

ND-500/5000 MONITOR  Version J04 88. 6.16 /     6. 6
ND-500(0) error:      No ND-500(0) CPU found

This confirms: 1. ND-500-MON-J04:PROG is a self-contained, directly-runnable SINTRAN background program — invoked with @ND-500 (or @ND-500-MONITOR), per ../../Reference-Manuals/ND-60.136.04A ND-500 Loader Monitor.md lines 729-822. No RT-LOADER/HENT-MODE load step is needed for the Monitor :PROG itself — see the correction in ../../Installation/OS/versions/SINTRAN-L.md section 4. 2. The "No ND-500(0) CPU found" error is a separate, later-stage failure: SINTRAN's boot-time hardware presence test (CH5CPUPRESENT, ../ND500-BUS-INTERFACE-REFERENCE.md section 8.1) never flagged a CPU present (CPUAVAILABLE/5ALIVE), so the Monitor's own runtime check refuses to proceed. This is a hardware/interface-detection issue (3022/5015 card or Octobus/Samson link not answering, or not configured in an emulator), not a software-install issue.