[Simh] Pdp8 terminals

Wed Sep 7 13:00:07 EDT 2016

My apologies. To be honest I am very ignorant about of the science of
computers. I am disabled, cannot work but I am a total computer history
buff. I want to learn and know and experience as much as I can and Simh is
a major part of that. I  want to help where I can so please excuse my
occasionally confusion.

On Sep 7, 2016 12:46 PM, "Johnny Billquist" <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:

> The 11/782 are no more asynchronous than any multiprocessor system.
>
> The A in ASMP stands for assymetric. As in, the second processor did not
> run any kernel code, but is a slave processor to the primary processor. It
> gets scheduled with user-land code to run, but any trapping to the OS means
> it interrupts the main processor, who do all the work.
>
>         Johnny
>
> On 2016-09-07 18:23, Ray Jewhurst wrote:
>
>> 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
>> <mailto: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
>>     <mailto:ethan.dicks at gmail.com>>
>>     Date: 9/6/16 5:00 PM (GMT-07:00)
>>     To: simh at trailing-edge.com <mailto: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
>>     <mailto: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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