-- > ------------------- > > /* AM-100.doc (c) Copyright Mike Noel, 2001-2002 */ > > > PREFACE > > This software is an emulator for the Alpha-Micro AM-100 computer. It is > copyright by Michael Noel and licensed for non-commercial hobbyist use under > terms of the "Q public license", an open source certified license. > > There exist known serious discrepancies between this software's internal > functioning and that of a real AM-100, as well as between it and the WD-1600 > manual describing the functionality of a real AM-100, and even between it > and the comments in the code describing what it is intended to do! Notice > that this software hasn't reached the 1.0 version yet. In fact it's a long > way from it. It's not beta; it's alpha. Use it at your own risk! > > Reliability aside, it is not the intent of the copyright holder to use this > software to compete with current or future Alpha-Micro products, and no > such competing application of the software will be supported. > > Alpha-Micro and other software that may be run on this emulator are not > covered by the above copyright or license and must be legally obtained from > an authorized source. > > As this is written I have permission from Alpha-Micro to distribute AMOS 5.0 > with the emulator so you can get that from me too - but it is subject to > their terms and conditions. > > > INSTALLATION > > Preferred installation is to compile the source on the target machine. > Tested targets include Red Hat Linux (6.1, 6.2, 7.0, 7,1, and 7.2) and > Microsoft Windows 98SE and 2000 using Cygwin 1.3.12-2 and 1.3.13-1. Frankly, > Windows 98 is not a good target. Windows 2000 and Linux are both OK. > > Step Zero. You have at least 12 megs free space - right? > > We will assume you have downloaded the source and > AMOS into a directory on your (running, known good) > linux or cygwin system; those files being > > ./AM-100-0.3.tgz > ./amos50.tgz > > Step One. Create a sub directory and untar the source. > > mkdir am > cd am > mv ../AM-100-0.3.tgz . > mv ../AMOS50.tgz > tar -xzf AM-100-0.3.tgz > tar -xzf amos50.tgz > > Step Two. Compile the source. > > make > > Step Three. Run it! > > ./AM-100 > > Step Four. What's this message... > > "boot failed! Problem with 'dsk0-container' ?" > > dsk0-container is the name of the file that represents DSK0 > in the emulator. Similarly, dsk1-container represents DSK1, > and dsk2-container and dsk3-container do the obvious. Each > container is 10 megs (19980 blocks). > > Since you might already have a dsk0-container, I've packaged > the AMOS release as dsk1-container. If you have enough free > space just copy dsk1-container to dsk0-container - if not > rename instead. > > Then run it again! > > cp dsk1-container dsk0-container > ./AM-100 > > Step Five. It booted - right? > > If not contact me & I'll try to help you figure out why... > > > OPERATION > > The window you run this in (msdos? cygwin? xterm?) is probably defaulted > to 25 lines x 80 columns. You need to shrink it to 24x80 (or vue and fix > won't scroll correctly). One reason I don't like W98 is I haven't found a > way to do that there... > > If you've other containers (dsk1-container, etal) you can mount and unmount > them as you like. Can't change without restarting the emulator thou... > > All the control keys should work. Esc should work. The Arrow keys, Insert, > Delete, Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn should work - at least as I would want > them to!! > > Watch out for ALT keys. ALT C means quit the emulator. ALT T toggles > instruction tracing. ALT S toggles instruction stepping (which doesn't work > in this release). See PS3.C for all the key mappings. > > Console output is to STDOUT. Traces go to STDERR. So if you want to try a > trace but don't want it mixed with your screen, start the emulator with > > ./AM-100 2>AM-100.log > > Then all the trace output goes into a file. Watch out - it gets huge very > very fast. Actually there is also a "user" trace facility, but I'm not > ready to try and document it yet. > > There are some other tricks you can play with STDOUT and STDERR. One is to > TEE the STDOUT so that all your console activity gets copied into a file. > Like this: > > ./AM-100 | tee AM-100.lst > or: > ./AM-100 2>AM-100.log | tee AM-100.lst > > CUT and PASTE works with the STDOUT console window. Access them by clicking > on the little icon on the left of the window bar. They are under 'edit'. > So copy that big basic program off your real machine and paste it into AMOS > basic (or edit) (or whatever). > > DO NOT USE DIRSEQ. It scrambles directories. I will track that down and > fix it for the next release. > > > PERFORMANCE > > Performance has not been a design consideration. There are dozens of places > it could be dramatically improved. My judgment is that's not worth the > effort. But judge for yourself. On a Pentium 166 laptop with linux 6.2 it > seems pretty close to what I remember my AM-100 being able to do. The ways > that AMOS loops when it doesn't have work are converted into sleeps, so it's > pretty low impact even on an old slow box. > > Of course on a 2.4 gig p4 it screams. Certainly much faster than the > AM-1000 I traded in my old AM-100 to buy, but I've no idea how it compares > to modern systems. > > Maybe someone will run some benchmarks??? > > > WHAT IS CHANGED/ADDED TO AMOS 5.0? > > Not much. The system.mon is a standard mongen of sysbsw.mon and my own disk > driver vdk.dvr[1,6]. I patched ps3.idv[1,6] to create ps3new.idv[1,6]. > Ansi.tdv[1,6] is a hack of a vt100 driver I wrote years ago. System.ini[1,4] > is a demonstration of bank switched memory. Spoolr.ini[1,4] is just a way > to test lptspl with output to the console. > > Source for vdk.dvr, ps3new.idv and ansi.tdv are not provided simply because > I haven't had time. vkd is a one-instruction link to the container file > disk system in hwassist.c. ps3new is just a branch back to output all > waiting chars at once instead of just one per clock tick - a performance > improvement. Ansi.tdv is just an ugly hack for the tcrt calls - the more > difficult input processing is handled in the ps3.c module of the emulator. > > > WHAT DO I **KNOW** DOES NOT WORK? > > Aside from DIRSEQ most stuff seems to work. LISP and PASCAL may not work > but I know so little about them I'm not certain. > > Format 11 instructions (floating point) have only been working a few days. > They are probably really sick and I just haven't noticed yet. But enjoy > basic until they bite you! > > I also have pretty good reason to think PS.V handling (and 'over/under flow' > in general) is not quite right. What the book says is supposed to happen is > at odds with what diagnostics check for and what known running programs do! > > > HOW TO REPORT A NEW BUG > > Send me an email (mike_at_otterway.com) telling me what you did, what happened, > and why you don't think that should have happened. For example: "I compiled > and ran xyz.bas and it crashed saying it couldn't open file aaa.bbb, but > aaa.bbb was there like it was supposed to be and this program and file work > on my real AM-100". So far I'm pretty prompt getting back to people who > tell me about problems, hopefully that will continue... > > > SOFTWARE DONATIONS > > Were you a software developer in the AM-100 heydays? Still have a copy of > your pride and joy laying around? Why not let others remember with you! > Let me post a copy for use with the emulator. All donations welcome! > > > CREDITS > > A number of people have helped and/or inspired me to write this thing. > > There's Jim Battle, who's built web pages and emulators for several machines > including the Processor Technology SOL-20 (see > http://www.thebattles.net/sol20/sol.html) . We share an interest in > Processor Tech hardware and software and I really admire the way he has > pulled all that arcane stuff together. > > There's Roger Bowler (etal) and the Hercules project (IBM mainframe > emulator, see http://www.conmicro.cx/hercules). I spent a lot of my career > as an OS sysprog, and what that team of people have done is just > magnificant. Many design elements of my emulator come from them - I even > borrowed their use of the Q license! > > There's Harvey, a guy who saved some of my old books for 20+ years in his > garage. Some were manuals for my old AM-100! There's Mike, who still has a > running AM-100, and was good enough to send me a copy of his wd16 manual. > There's Rhett who found me a really clean complete copy of amos. There's > Joe, another guy with a running AM-100 who sent me an assembled copy of the > cpu diagnostic and worked with me to get it to run without a monitor. And > of course there's Alex who has given permission to distribute amos along > with the emulator so more people can enjoy it. > > >Received on Wed Oct 30 2002 - 09:26:48 GMT
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