Bob Supnik's Emulator.

[Steven M. Schultz]

Robin -

	Howdy.

> From: Robin Birch <robin at falstaf.demon.co.uk>
> I've been struggling with Bob's emulator (version 2.3d).  The main

	2.3d?  Hmmm, sounds like a little newer one than I've used in the
	past (I've updated selected modules so I'm probably running 2.3d
	but the directory is still called 2.3b ;))

> problem appears to be around the TM device driver.  I've been creating
> boot programs and data on my 11/73 under 2.11 BSD.

	I don't think that's the case - but read on and see if my new
	theory sounds plausible...

> Using separate bootstraps, boot and <program>, I have labeled and mkfs
> an RP04.  I then tried restor.  Well, I can get restor to load and run
> but it doesn't want to understand the dump file written with dd that is
> created as part of the generation of a distribution set on the 11/73.

	Umm, you can't use a 'dd'd image - you have to use 'makesimtape'
	(or a similar utility) to add the record/file/bytecount markers that
	the simulator expects to see.

> I suspect that there is some form of data conversion that I have to go
> through before I can read the files on the emulator.

	Yes, there is.  Not sure why it didn't occur to me earlier when you
	mentioned having problems.

	I assume you compiled and ran 'makesimtape' on the same system
	(Sparc) as the simulator is running.

	If so then it sounds to be like there's an endianness bug in
	makesimtape.  That wouldn't surprise me since all I have are 
	either little or pdp-11 endian systems and never tested makesimtape
	on a big endian machine.

	There are ifdefs around what I thought were the appropriate places
	for flipping bytes - what you'll need to do is get Bob's description
	of the simulated tape format (fairly simply and it's in the docs
	somewhere as I recall) and the makesimtape.c source and see where I
	"oops"d.

> Has anybody installed 2.11 on the emulator from scratch.  If so, can
> they offer any advice.
	
	Yes, I have.  But only on little endian systems.  The one time (ages
	ago) I tried the simulator on a Sparc the program dropped core because
	it wasn't bigendian capable.  That's been fixed but I've never tried
	it again.

	Steven

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