[Simh] Pdp8 terminals

[Ray Jewhurst]

I think you are like I am. I would like to see every DEC simulator
possible. Right now I am doing some preliminary research into the
feasibility of a VAX 11/782 which is an asynchronous dual processor
11/780.  I will need help because I am not a real experienced coder.

On Sep 6, 2016 8:21 PM, "khandy21yo" <khandy21yo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Just curious,. Is there any thought about emulating any of the Dec mate
> Line? I used to deal with them, mostly as wps8. I don't know what the
> hardware differences are, but I saw a large number of Dec mates and only a
> few pdp8s. How compatible were they?
>
>
>
> Sent from my Galaxy Tab® A
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
> Date: 9/6/16 5:00 PM (GMT-07:00)
> To: simh at trailing-edge.com
> Subject: Re: [Simh] Pdp8 terminals
>
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 1:03 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
> > Hi.
> >
> > On 2016-09-06 18:55, Bob Supnik wrote:
> >>
> >> The PDP8 simulator is more or less a PDP8/A, and its terminal
> >> "multiplexor" is a KL8-JA, which implements four discrete KL8A style
> >> interfaces. These are superset compatible with the PDP8/I's PT08
> >> discrete interfaces, and thus TSS/8 will work. Note that TSS/8 supports
> >> only four discrete terminal interfaces. To get more than four lines, the
> >> configuration must have a DC08(A), a multiplexor for the PDP8/I. The
> >> DC08(A) is not implemented at the moment.
> >
> >
> > This can't be correct.
> >
> > The KL8JA is a single line interface, compatible with the KL8E, but using
> > different hardware. You can add lots of KL8E or KL8JA interfaces to a
> PDP8,
> > if you wanted to. Each have a different device code, and that's all
> there is
> > to it. (Talking about the actual hardware here.) In addition, as far as
> I am
> > aware, the programming of these interfaces are pretty much the same as
> the
> > console interface on all other PDP-8 models as well.
> >
> > The KL8A was a very late device for Omnibus, which require a hex wide
> box.
> > It is a 4 line multiplexor, but the programming interface is nothing like
> > the KL8JA or KL8E. In addition, not all lines are the same. And again,
> you
> > can add several of these multiplexers to a machine, if you want to.
>
> Agreed... here are the handle numbers to help clarify what we are all
> talking about...
>
> M8319 KL8A PDP-8/A 4 channel serial I/O
>
> M8650 KL8E Asynchronous Data Control (current loop or RS232)
> M8655 KL8JA Terminal Control (UART based substitute for M8650)
>
>
> The KL8E and KL8JA are, AFAIK, not easy (or not possible?) to tell
> apart in software.  The KL8A is entirely different - the only time
> I've ever used my KL8A was with RTS-8.  I'm not sure I have any OS/8
> code that knows how to talk to it.  If it's out there, I'd love to
> read it.
>
> >> There was a significant evolution in the PDP8 family's IO controllers
> >> from the original 8 and 8/I to the Omnibus-based 8/E and 8/A.
>
> Very true.  I have a bunch of the real hardware spanning the entire
> era and, yeah, Omnibus devices and pre-Omnibus devices are commonly
> different (I think the console 03/04 interface is, up to the DECmate
> era, the most compatible across the spectrum).
>
> -ethan
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