Stupid that I did not think of trying SJ.
With SJ entering .R ADVENT starts Adventure also!
I assumed that VBG was for Virtual BackGround, so
nice to be comfirmed on that.
Indeed, I have E11 running on an 486DX2/66, but I
cannot give an idea of how fast it runs, compared
to a PDP-11. Although E11 can be set to an 11/70,
I have set it to /35-40 because that is also the
*real* hardware I have. Never set it to /34(A) or
to /44. Both those systems I also have running.
Next time that I start the 11/35 I will run ADVENT
on both of them and measure the time until the
welcome message appears on the screen.
For the "blinkenlights" check out my webpage.
http://home.hetnet.nl/~tshaj/pdpsite/pdpstartpage.html
then click in the left pane on the link Homebrew 'PDP-11'.
At this moment only the LEDs of the data bus blink.
I hope to add a piece of hardware that 'talks' to Ersatz-11
so that the address bus LEDs are also active *and* that the
switches function as on the real thing. The goal is that
the hardware design can facilitate *any* real PDP-11 console
that has switches and lights, from an 11/10 to an 11/70.
Of course, this project needs the cooperation of John Wilson,
and I had already some preliminary contacts with him.
He also likes the option to connect a real console to the
demo(!) version of Ersatz-11.
-Henk.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jerome Fine [mailto:jhfine_at_idirect.com]
> Sent: woensdag 24 oktober 2001 0:41
> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Adventure in Ersatz-11
>
>
> >Gooijen H wrote:
>
> > Yes !!
>
> Jerome Fine replies:
>
> Thank you for the feed back. I was not sure how much memory
> ADVENT requires. You might also try:
> BOOT RT11SJ
> if you wish.
>
> > Thanks very much, Jerome.
> > Booting RT-11FB and then running ADVENT still produces
> > the "Insufficient memory" fatal error.
> > However, VBGEXE works fine !
> > After the "Welcome to Adventure!! Would you like instructions?"
> > and entering 'YES", it goes: Somewhere nearby is Colossal Cave,
> > etc.
> > This means that I am now going to play Adventure. This has a
> > serious drawback on the expansion of my website ...
> > I am playing it on my "homebrew-PDP" with the BLINKENLIGHTS on!!
> > On my website this project (early phase) has a separate link.
> > BTW. What is VBGEXE, what do the letters stand for?
> > Thanks again,
> > Henk.
>
> "EXEcute Virtual BackGround program" is how I think of the letters
> with the understanding that the word EXEcute is then switched
> to the end.
>
> A few points worth noting.
>
> (a) If FOO.SAV requires any arguments as in:
> "RUN DEV:FOO.SAV arguments" or replace RUN with VBGEXE,
> then they must be on the same line. The alternative is the
> put all three
> parts of the command on separate lines. Otherwise, with just
> "VBGEXE DEV:FOO.SAV" on the first line, somehow the request
> for information expects the arguments to already be there and if not,
> just exits. Entering:
> VBGEXE
> DEV:FOO.SAV
> arguments
> on three separate lines works as well.
>
> (b) The command:
> SRUN VBGEXE.SAV/TERMINAL:n/LEVEL:m/NAME:utility
> also works very well when you want to run a system job at a
> higher priority.
> TERMINAL is only useful with a system that has multi-terminal support
> LEVEL specifies the system job number ( 1=>6 )
> NAME can be used to automatically select an executable file
> called SY:utility.SAV
> One minor problem is that if name is omitted, then only ONE
> instance of
> VBGEXE can be invoked as a system job since the high memory
> GRCBs (Global
> Region Control Blocks) must all have different names. I have
> a small patch
> with allows the user to do the command:
> SRUN VBGEXE.SAV/TERMINAL:n/LEVEL:m/NAME:VBGEXm
> If that is done, each GRCB is given the name VBGEXm making them all
> different. This means that no program can have the name VBGEX(1=>6),
> a restriction that I assume can be lived with.
>
> I also remember that modifying TECO to be named VMUNG so that
> "VBGEXE VMUNG arguments"
> would work the same as
> "MUNG arguments"
> but use the full 64 KBytes allowed by VBGEXE.
>
> By the way, I assume that you are using E11 on a PC. Which hardware
> and how fast do you find that the code runs compared to any
> real PDP-11
> hardware. Plus, I can't remember about the "BLINKENLIGHTS" - what
> did you do to have those available?
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Jerome Fine
>
>
Received on Wed Oct 24 2001 - 10:05:18 BST