[Simh] Mostly complete TX-0, free to a good home.

[Howard M. Harte]

Mostly complete TX-0, free to a good home.

 

What's included:

================

TX-0 CPU

8KW or 64KW 18-bit RAM.

Photoelectric Tape Reader (PETR)

CRT Display

Light Pen

Flexowriter for input and output.

 

What's missing:

===============

Magtape

Paper Tape Punch

 

I've been working on a TX-0 simulator for SIMH.  Ever since I read Steven
Levy's book "Hackers" in the mid-80's, I've wanted to use this machine.
There is a lot of information on bitsavers.org about the TX-0, and there are
also some paper tape images available.  I chose to implement both the
original 1956 instruction set, and the enhanced instruction set from 1961.

 

I used Phil Budne's Vector Display code (from the PDP-1) to do the CRT and
light pen, and using this, I am able to play Tic-Tac-Toe (and win) on the
TX-0.  The Mouse Maze game also loads and runs; however a bug in the
simulation causes the mouse to get stuck after finding a piece of cheese.

 

I've been reading the TX-0 documentation on bitsavers.org, but so far have
not tried to get the MIDAS, or DOCTOR programs running, and in general, I do
not have a lot of experience with the TX-0.  

 

I'd like to contribute this simulator to the SIMH project with the hope that
others may use it, learn from it, improve it, and help dig through the
documentation and bits available on bitsavers.org (or elsewhere) to help
re-discover or recover the information necessary to make the available TX-0
software run again.

 

I'm also looking for modern photographs of the TX-0 system, or what remains
of it.  From what I can tell, parts of the original system are back at
Lincoln Labs, although not accessible to the public.

 

What is the procedure to integrate this code into the SIMH distribution?
I've tested the TX-0 simulation using SIMH v3.8-1 under Windows XP and
Linux.

 

Thanks,

Howard

 

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