This is the PDP-8 Emulator of the

 National Centre for
 Minimal- and Retro- Computing
 Stuttgart - Germany

written mostly in 80<kotz>86 - assembler


It consists of the following files:

TM_PDP8.EXE     the emulator itself
BOOT.I61	the bootstrap for OS/8:
		0030 6743
		0031 5031 you know!
OS8.RK8		the disk
OS8.EXE		a utility to transfer files between OS/8 and MSDOS
EMU.BAT		a batch file to start the emulator

STATUS.PDP	the core and other status information of the pdp-8

INIT_NRM.BI	two prototype files for starting the OS/8 system
INIT_ASM.BI

CAPSL.COM	two utilities to switch the Caps-Lock on and off,
CAPSUNL.COM	since OS/8 accepts only capital letters.
INSPAR.EXE	another utility to insert the actual date and MSDOS-
		parameters in the OS/8 INIT.BI-file


Put the TM_PDP8.ARC in a subdirectory, pkxarc it, enter EMU and start
working with OS/8!

The emulator emulates:
a PDP8-E
  KM8-E  unit with 32K * 12 Bit nonvolatile core
  KE8-E  EAE (extended arithmetic element)
2 RK8-E  drives
3 KL8-E  serial lines:
	 03/04 is the console
	 30/31 is com1 or com2
	 40/41 is com2 or com1

K12MIT, as well as Johnny Billquists KERMIT are running correctly.




Description of the OS8 - utility.

OS8.EXE allows a file transfer between the emulated RK8-E disk of
TM_PDP8 and the MSDOS file system.
It can read and write OS8-file and copy them to and from MSDOS.
It also can display the OS8-directory.

OS8.EXE can be invoked either in batch mode, or in interactive mode.

If you call it 'OS8 OS8.RK8' you are in the interactive mode and
can give the following commands:

?  or  H	print a help text
DSK: or SYS:	change the OS8-default device
D <name.ex>	show OS8-directory
R <file.ex>	copy an OS/-file to DOS
W <file.ex>	copy an MSDOS-file to OS/8
EXIT		finish and exit.


You can also invoke OS8.EXE in batch mode, by giving a read or write
command in one line:

OS8 OS8.RK8 W INIT.BI

copies only the file INIT.BI to OS8 and then finishes OS8.EXE

* Default extension for the RK8-E device file is '.RK8', others are
  allowed.

* With command D and R the OS/8 wildcards ? and * are allowed, with
  W they are not.

* 8-letter MSDOS names and 3-letter extensions are truncated to 6 and
  2 letters.

* An existing file with the same name is not deleted, it is renamed to
  ZZ#000#000ZZ.ZZ. So after writing files with OS8, you should give the
  commands:
.DEL ZZ??ZZ.ZZ
.SQUISH DSK:
  after starting OS/8.

* There can exist more than one file with the name ZZ#000#000ZZ.ZZ!

* There is one bug in OS8.EXE: Sometimes, if an OS/8 directory segment is
  full, it finishes with the message:
  DIRECTORY SEGMENT FULL.
  You should then start TM_PDP8 and DELete or create some files or squish
  the directory.
  In a later version of OS8.EXE this bug will be corrected.




Klemens Krause

krause@azu.uni-stuttgart.de

