[Simh] MAME and simh

[Peter Allan]

Well my request for help getting MAME to talk to simh has generated a lot
of replies, so let me deal with them in groups.

> Why not use PuTTY for the VT emulator?
>What is the point of trying to use MAME for VT emulation?

My reason for being interested in using MAME is that it is NOT a terminal
emulator program All terminal emulator programs such as PuTTY, xterm,
SecureCRT, etc, are pieces of software that aim to emulate the functions of
a particular type of terminal. While all of them are useful (I use putty
and xterm quite a lot myself), all of them fail to implement some features
of the physical terminal. Usually this is not a problem, but occasionally I
find it really annoying. The point about MAME is that, rather like simh
itself, it simulates the hardware and runs the real firmware from real
VTxxx ROMs. In the case of the VT terminal configuration, MAME simulates an
8085 microprocessor and executes the code from the original ROMs. Hence all
the features of a physical terminal should be present automatically.

> Is it worth the effort considering that xterm, PuTTY, SecureCRT do a
reasonable job?

Well I consider it worthwhile. Quite honestly, it is worth it (for me, at
least) just to have the screen look like a real VT terminal with real
Set-up options and 'red LEDs' in the VT100 configuration. If anyone thinks
that is just silly, I won't argue against that point of view. I simply like
it looking like, and acting like, the real thing. I will still use xterm as
well since it is very convenient.

The .Xresources file that I use with xterm is as follows:

XTerm.vt100.faceName: DejaVu Sans Mono Book
XTerm.vt100.faceSize: 12
XTerm.vt100.foreground: green
XTerm.vt100.background: black
XTerm.vt100.scrollBar: true
XTerm.vt100.rightScrollBar: true
! Setting utf8 to zero is needed so that EDIT/TPU displays 8-bit characters
correctly
XTerm.vt100.utf8: 0
! Set the terminal emulation to VT100, VT220 or VT420. (Just use the
number.)
XTerm.vt100.decTerminalID: 220

Johnny posted a more comprehensive version which looks very useful.

Matt - thanks for the links that you provided. I will follow them up.

Timothy - thanks for the information about MAME and printers. I did not
know about that.

Sadly, none of this has told me how to get MAME to talk to simh, so I will
continue trying to get that to work. The links that I originally posted do
tell you, very clearly, except it doesn't work for me :-(

If I get this to work, I will let you know how.

Cheers

Peter Allan


On Wed, 1 Jul 2020 at 14:34, Peter Allan <petermallan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I am trying to get MAME to talk to simh in order to use MAME as a VT
> terminal emulator. However, I am failing to get the two to talk to each
> other. I have been using simh for over 10 years, but I only picked up MAME
> two days ago.
>
> I have tried MAME v 0.222 on Windows 10 and MAME v 0.208 on Debian 10.1.
> Both start up successfully, but I have trouble using them. I also have a
> set of 13 ROMs for several VT terminals.
>
> I have found some helpful information on the web, specifically
>
> https://zork.net/~st/jottings/Real-VT102-emulation-with-MAME.html
>
> and
>
>  https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/MAME_and_SIMH
>
> The latter page looks like it should be just what I am looking for, but it
> describes using a VT240 ROM. My vt240 ROM doesn't work. My vt220 ROM does
> work, but when I follow the instructions to 'press F3 to enter setup',
> nothing happens.
>
> I have also got the impression that some of the command line options for
> mame have changed over time, so some older information on the web may no
> longer be accurate.
>
> So, has anyone got this combination to work? If so, can they send me exact
> instructions on how to do it please. I hope that I am simply failing to do
> something that will become obvious with hindsight.
>
> My normal Linux system is CentOS 6, CentOS 7 or Fedora 31, but I also have
> Debian 10.1 available.
>
> I run several simulated VAX and PDP-11 instances using simh.
>
> Cheers
>
> Peter Allan
>
>
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