PDP-10
larsbrinkhoff opened this issue · 8 comments
Hello,
Which PDP-10 software are you planning to run?
I see there's a KA10 CPU in progress, but the latest version of TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 would run better on a KL10. ITS will probably run on a KA10, but requires some special modification to a stock machine.
I'm starting with the oldest PDP-10 (KA10). As for software, I'm going to start with PDP-10 diagnostics (eg, from paper tape or magnetic tape images). However, I'm not yet to the point where I can run any off-the-shelf software for the PDP-10. All I'm running so far are sequences that I hand-enter into the built-in debugger/assembler.
I haven't looked into what vintages of TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 are available yet, but there again, I would want to locate the oldest available version, start with that, then work forward to newer/newest versions. In any case, I'm assuming that I'll need all the KA10 functionality, at a minimum.
I followed the same strategy with the PDP-11, by starting with the PDP-11/20 (more or less) and working my way up to the 11/70, and starting with diagnostic paper tape images and gradually working up to disk images with complete operating systems.
That sounds reasonable. But be aware that the different PDP-10 models to some extent used different peripheral devices. I would advice you to not invest too much effort emulating a KA10 system if your ultimate goal is to run later versions of the operating systems.
If you want some simple programs for testing, I can provide paper tape or magtape images with standalone tools that can read and write to tape and disk.
That would be great. Please share or point me to whatever you can. Thanks.
It's here: https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/ka10-simh/commits/its
There's MAGDMP in bootable paper tape and magtape formats. MAGDMP can read/write/run files from a appropriately formatted magtape.
There's also DSKDMP in paper tape format. DSKDMP is like MAGDMP but for an ITS disk filesystem.
How's the PDP-10 emulator coming along?
Too many projects, too little time. This PCjs page demonstrates the state of that particular emulator so far. It's still just a CPU emulation at this point -- no device/interrupt support. I also wrote a MACRO-10 work-alike assembler in JavaScript that's baked into the emulation environment, so that I can inject diagnostic source code into the machine without requiring binaries (or any means of loading them). This PCjs section of the website documents the diagnostics that I had worked through.
Thanks for the update!