LEICHTER-JERRY@YALE.ARPA (10/24/86)
In the SYSGEN-manual most SYSGEN parameters are described, except the
/SPECIAL parameters. The manual told me that these parameters are only
to be adjusted by DEC (well, DEC also delivers AUTOGEN.COM ... >| ).
I disagree with DEC: At least I want to know the meaning of these
parameters. So SYSGEN-wizards out there in VMS-land: Please mail a
description of the /SPECIAL parameters (or tell me, where I have to look
in the manuals, I didn't found the description).
Most of the /SPECIAL parameters are described - albeit briefly - in SYSGEN's
HELP file - go into SYSGEN and type HELP PARAMETERS <parameter-name>. I
suspect the ones that aren't listed have been added fairly recently; the
HELP file may eventually grow a bit. (Note that if SYSGEN didn't happen to
show you some of these parameters - and there are certainly "parameters" that
exist only as assembled-in constants, not visible from SYSGEN - you wouldn't
be wondering what they did.)
AUTOGEN doesn't touch any /SPECIAL parameters (well, maybe one or two,
especially with some layered products - I think VWS adjusts PIOPAGES and
CHANNELCNT). The reason they are special (and mainly undocumented) is that
most have very little use except in VMS development and debugging. For
example, setting WRITEABLESYS true causes the pages of VMS that are normally
read-only to be made writeable. Great if you like patching the running
system. A couple are useful in special instances and tend to get documented
when needed (e.g., TTY_DEFPORT has a bit that can be set to avoid a problem
with Able DMZ boards).
-- Jerry
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