[Simh] attaching a tape virtual file without stopping simulation

[Boucher, François]

Hi to all!

 

I am testing the simh magnetic tape device, and I encountered a difficulty.

To attach a simulated tape file to the simulator, I need to go to the simh console,

by typing ctrl-E then type the attach command, ex: attach tq0 tape.tap

and then continue the simulation with cont.

 

The problem is that when I stop the simulator, with ctrl-E as my simulator is in a cluster,

other nodes stop seeing it and start a vaxcluster modification that removes the node in

question from the cluster, as they believe it is unavailable.  

The cluster heartbeat is stopped as the simulation is stopped.

If I do a CONT command then, VMS makes the stopped/started node crash abruptly and reboot.

This behaviour is ... annoying! ;)

Of course, if the simulator is running as a single instance, or is not part of a VMS cluster, this problem

does not show up.

 

Another thing to note, is that when VMS does a dismount mua0: of the tape, the attached file is then

getting detached by simh.  This behaviour is perfectly correct, as in the physical world, when a real tape 

is given the unmount command, the tape drive effectively ejects it, unless the switch /nounload is specified.

That behaviour is also perfectly reproduced in simh.

 

My question is:

How can I attach a tape virtual file to the TQ0 simulated device in simh without stopping simulation with CTRL-E ?

Is there a software signal that can be sent to the simulator to activate the tapefile attach ?

Note that I can accept to have the tape filename to be a constant.

 

Thanks,

 

Francois Boucher ing.

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