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# SIMH v4.0 - Beta
## WHAT'S NEW
### New Simulators
#### Matt Burke has implemented new VAX model simulators:
VAX/11 730
VAX/11 750
VAX 8600/8650
MicroVAX I & VAXStation I
MicroVAX II & VAXStation II
rtVAX 1000 (or Industrial VAX 620)
#### Howard Harte has implemented a Lincoln Labs TX-0 simulator.
#### Gerardo Ospina has implemented a Manchester University SSEM (Small Scale Experimental Machine) simulator.
#### Updated AltairZ80 simulator from Peter Schorn.
#### Updated HP2100 simulator from Dave Bryan.
### New Host Platform support - HP-UX and AIX
### New Functionality
#### Remote Console Facility
A new capability has been added which allows a TELNET Connection to a user designated port so that some out of band commands can be entered to manipulate and/or adjust a running simulator. The commands which enable and control this capability are SET REMOTE TELNET=port, SET REMOTE CONNECTIONS=n, SET REMOTE TIMEOUT=seconds, and SHOW REMOTE.
The remote console facility has two modes of operation: 1) single command mode. and 2) multiple command mode.
In single command mode you enter one command at a time and aren't concerned about what the simulated system is doing while you enter that command. The command is executed once you've hit return.
In multiple command mode you initiate your activities by entering the WRU character (usually ^E). This will suspend the current simulator execution. You then enter commands as needed and when you are done you enter a CONTINUE command. While entering Multiple Command commands, if you fail to enter a complete command before the timeout (specified by "SET REMOTE TIMEOUT=seconds"), a CONTINUE command is automatically processed and simulation proceeds.
A subset of normal simh commands are available for use in remote console sessions.
The Single Command Mode commands are: ATTACH, DETACH, PWD, SHOW, DIR, LS, ECHO, HELP
The Multiple Command Mode commands are: EXAMINE, IEXAMINE, DEPOSIT, EVALUATE, ATTACH, DETACH, ASSIGN, DEASSIGN, STEP, CONTINUE, PWD, SAVE, SET, SHOW, DIR, LS, ECHO, HELP
A remote console session will close when an EOF character is entered (i.e. ^D or ^Z).
#### VAX/PDP11 Enhancements
RQ has new disk types: RC25, RCF25, RA80
RQ device has a settable controller type (RQDX3, UDA50, KLESI, RUX50)
RQ disks default to Autosize without regard to disk type
RQ disks on PDP11 can have RAUSER size beyond 2GB
DMC11 DDCMP DECnet device simulation from Rob Jarratt. Up to 4 DMC11 devices are supported.
DZ on Unibus systems can have up to 256 ports (default of 32), on
Qbus systems 128 port limit (default of 16).
DZ devices optionally support full modem control (and port speed settings
when connected to serial ports).
DHU11 (device VH) on Unibus systems now has 16 ports per multiplexer.
MicroVAX 3900 and MicroVAX II have SET CPU AUTOBOOT option
MicroVAX 3900 has a SET CPU MODEL=(MicroVAX|VAXServer) command to change between system types
MicroVAX I has a SET CPU MODEL=(MicroVAX|VAXSTATION) command to change between system types
MicroVAX II has a SET CPU MODEL=(MicroVAX|VAXSTATION) command to change between system types
#### Terminal Multiplexer additions
Added support for TCP connections using IPv4 and/or IPv6.
Logging - Traffic going out individual lines can be optionally logged to
files
Buffering - Traffic going to a multiplexor (or Console) line can
optionally be buffered while a telnet session is not connected
and the buffered contents will be sent out a newly connecting
telnet session. This allows a user to review what may have
happened before they connect to that session.
Serial Port support based on work by J David Bryan and Holger Veit
Serial Console Support
Separate TCP listening ports per line
Outgoing connections per line (virtual Null Modem cable).
#### Asynchronous I/O
* Disk and Tape I/O can be asynchronous. Asynchronous support exists
for pdp11_rq, pdp11_rp and pdp11_tq devices (used by VAX and PDP11
simulators).
* Multiplexer I/O (Telnet and/or Serial) can be asynchronous.
Asynchronous support exists for console I/O and most multiplexer
devices. (Still experimental - not currently by default)
#### Disk Extensions
RAW Disk Access (including CDROM)
Virtual Disk Container files, including differincing disks
#### Embedded ROM support
Simulators which have boot commands which load constant files as part of
booting have those files imbedded into the simulator executable. The
imbedded files are used if the normal boot file isn't found when the
simulator boots. Specific examples are: VAX (MicroVAX 3900 - ka655x.bin),
VAX8600 (VAX 8600 - vmb.exe), VAX780 (VAX 11/780 - vmb.exe),
VAX750 (VAX 11/750 - vmb.exe), VAX730 (VAX 11/730 - vmb.exe),
VAX610 (MicroVAX I - ka610.bin), VAX620 (rtVAX 1000 - ka620.bin),
VAX630 (MicroVAX II - ka630.bin)
#### Control Flow
The following extensions to the SCP command language without affecting prior behavior:
GOTO <Label> Command is now available. Labels are lines
in which the first non whitespace character
is a ":". The target of a goto is the first
matching label in the current do command
file which is encountered. Since labels
don't do anything else besides being the
targets of goto's, they could be used to
provide comments in do command files, for
example (":: This is a comment")
SET ON Enables error trapping for currently defined
traps (by ON commands)
SET NOON Disables error trapping for currently
defined traps (by ON commands)
RETURN Return from the current do command file
execution with the status from the last
executed command
RETURN <statusvalue> Return from the current do command file
execution with the indicated status. Status
can be a number or a SCPE_<conditionname>
name string.
ON <statusvalue> commandtoprocess{; additionalcommandtoprocess}
Sets the action(s) to take when the specific
error status is returned by a command in the
currently running do command file. Multiple
actions can be specified with each delimited
by a semicolon character (just like
breakpoint action commands).
ON ERROR commandtoprocess{; additionalcommandtoprocess}
Sets the default action(s) to take when any
otherwise unspecified error status is returned
by a command in the currently running do
command file. Multiple actions can be
specified with each delimited by a semicolon
character (just like breakpoint action
commands).
ON <statusvalue>
ON ERROR Clears the default actions to take when any
otherwise unspecified error status is
returned by a command in the currently
running do command file.
Error traps can be taken for any command which returns a status other than SCPE_STEP, SCPE_OK, and SCPE_EXIT.
ON Traps can specify any status value from the following list: NXM, UNATT, IOERR, CSUM, FMT, NOATT, OPENERR, MEM, ARG, STEP, UNK, RO, INCOMP, STOP, TTIERR, TTOERR, EOF, REL, NOPARAM, ALATT, TIMER, SIGERR, TTYERR, SUB, NOFNC, UDIS, NORO, INVSW, MISVAL, 2FARG, 2MARG, NXDEV, NXUN, NXREG, NXPAR, NEST, IERR, MTRLNT, LOST, TTMO, STALL, AFAIL. These values can be indicated by name or by their internal numeric value (not recommended).
Interactions with ASSERT command and "DO -e":
DO -e is equivalent to SET ON, which by itself it equivalent to "SET ON; ON ERROR RETURN".
ASSERT failure have several different actions:
If error trapping is not enabled then AFAIL causes exit from the current do command file.
If error trapping is enabled and an explicit "ON AFAIL" action is defined, then the specified action is performed.
If error trapping is enabled and no "ON AFAIL" action is defined, then an AFAIL causes exit from the current do command file.
Other related changes/extensions:
The "!" command (execute a command on the local OS), now returns the command's exit status as the status from the "!" command. This allows ON conditions to handle error status responses from OS commands and act as desired.
#### Help
HELP dev
HELP dev ATTACH
HELP dev SET (aka HELP SET dev)
HELP dev SHOW (aka HELP SHOW dev)
HELP dev REGISTERS
#### Generic scp support Clock Coscheduling as opposed to per simulator implementations.
#### New SCP Commands:
SET ENVIRONMENT Name=Value Set Environment variable
SET ASYNCH Enable Asynchronous I/O
SET NOASYNCH Disable Asynchronous I/O
SET VERIFY Enable commang display while processing DO command files
SET NOVERIFY Enable commang display while processing DO command files
SET MESSAGE Enable error message output when commands complete (default)
SET NOMESSAGE Disable error message output when commands complete
SET QUIET Set minimal output mode for command execution
SET NOQUIET Set normal output mode for command execution
SET PROMPT Change the prompt used by the simulator (defaulr sim>)
SET THROTTLE x/t Throttle t ms every x cycles
SET REMOTE TELNET=port Specify remote console telnet port
SET REMOTE NOTELNET Disables remote console
SET REMOTE CONNECTIONS=n Specify the number of concurrent remote console sessions
SHOW FEATURES Displays the devices descriptions and features
SHOW ASYNCH Display the current Asynchronous I/O status
SHOW SERIAL Display the available and/or open serial ports
SHOW ETHERNET Display the available and/or open ethernet connections
SHOW MULTIPLEXER Display the details about open multiplexer devices
SHOW CLOCKS Display the details about calibrated timers
SHOW REMOTE Display the remote console configuration
SHOW ON Display ON condition dispatch actions
SET ON Enable ON condition error dispatching
SET NOON Disable ON condition error dispatching
GOTO Transfer to lable in the current DO command file
CALL Call subroutine at indicated label
RETURN Return from subroutine call
SHIFT Slide argument parameters %1 thru %9 left 1
NOOP A no-op command
ON Establish or cancel an ON condition dispatch
CD Change working directory
SET DEFAULT Change working directory
PWD Show working directory
SHOW DEFAULT Show working directory
DIR {path|file} Display file listing
LS {path|file} Display file listing
#### Command Processing Enhancements
##### Environment variable insertion
Built In variables %DATE%, %TIME%, %CTIME%, %STATUS%, %TSTATUS%, %SIM_VERIFY%, %SIM_QUIET%, %SIM_MESSAGE%
Command Aliases
Token "%0" expands to the command file name.
Token %n (n being a single digit) expands to the n'th argument
Tonen %* expands to the whole set of arguments (%1 ... %9)
The input sequence "\%" represents a literal "%", and "\\" represents a
literal "\". All other character combinations are rendered literally.
Omitted parameters result in null-string substitutions.
A Tokens preceeded and followed by % characters are expanded as environment
variables, and if one isn't found then can be one of several special
variables:
%DATE% yyyy/mm/dd
%TIME% hh:mm:ss
%CTIME% Www Mmm dd hh:mm:ss yyyy
%STATUS% Status value from the last command executed
%TSTATUS% The text form of the last status value
%SIM_VERIFY% The Verify/Verbose mode of the current Do command file
%SIM_VERBOSE% The Verify/Verbose mode of the current Do command file
%SIM_QUIET% The Quiet mode of the current Do command file
%SIM_MESSAGE% The message display status of the current Do command file
Environment variable lookups are done first with the precise name between
the % characters and if that fails, then the name between the % characters
is upcased and a lookup of that valus is attempted.
The first Space delimited token on the line is extracted in uppercase and
then looked up as an environment variable. If found it the value is
supstituted for the original string before expanding everything else. If
it is not found, then the original beginning token on the line is left
untouched.
##### Command aliases
commands can be aliases with environment variables. For example:
sim> set env say=echo
sim> say Hello there
Hello there
##### Do command argument manipulation
The SHIFT command will shift the %1 thru %9 arguments to the left one position.
## Building and running a simulator
### Use Prebuilt Windows Simulators
Simulators for the Windows platform are built and made available on a regular basis (at least once a week if changes have been made to the codebase).
The prebuilt Windows binaries will run on all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows XP onward.
They can be accessed at https://github.com/simh/Win32-Development-Binaries
Several relatively recent versions should be available which you can download and use directly.
### Building simulators yourself
First download the latest source code from the github repository's master branch at https://github.com/simh/simh/archive/master.zip
Depending on your host platform one of the following steps should be followed:
#### Linux/OSX other *nix platforms
If you are interested in using a simulator with Ethernet networking support (i.e. one of the VAX simulators or the PDP11), then you should make sure you have the correct networking components available. The instructions in https://github.com/simh/simh/blob/master/0readme_ethernet.txt describe the required steps to get ethernet networking components installed and how to configure your environment.
See the 0readme_ethernet.txt file for details about the required network components for your platform. Once your operating system has the correct networking components available the following command will build working simulators:
$ make {simulator-name (i.e. vax)}
#### Windows
Compiling on windows is supported with recent versions of Microsoft Visual Studio (Standard or Express) and using GCC via the MinGW environment. Things may also work under Cygwin, but that is not the preferred windows environment. Not all features will be available as well as with either Visual Studio or MinGW.
##### Required related files. The file https://github.com/simh/simh/blob/master/Visual%20Studio%20Projects/0ReadMe_Projects.txt
##### Visual Studio (Standard or Express) 2008, 2010 or 2012
The file https://github.com/simh/simh/blob/master/Visual%20Studio%20Projects/0ReadMe_Projects.txt describes the required steps to use the setup your environment to build using Visual Studio.
##### MinGW
The file https://github.com/simh/simh/blob/master/Visual%20Studio%20Projects/0ReadMe_Projects.txt describes the required steps to use the setup your environment to build using MinGW.
#### VMS
Download the latest source code as a zip file from: https://github.com/simh/simh/archive/master.zip
Unzip it in the directory that you want SIMH to reside in. Unpack it and
set the file attributes as follows:
$ unzip simh-master.zip
$ set default [.simh-master]
$ set file/attri=RFM:STM makefile,*.mms,[...]*.c,[...]*.h,[...]*.txt
Simulators with ethernet network devices (All the VAX simulators and the
PDP11) can have functioning networking when running on Alpha or IA64 OpenVMS.
In order to build and run simulators with networking support, the VMS-PCAP
package must be available while building your simulator. The simh-vms-pcap.zip
file can be downloaded from https://github.com/simh/simh/archive/vms-pcap.zip
This link will return a file called simh-vms-pcap.zip which should be unpacked as follows:
$ unzip -aa simh-vms-pcap.zip
$ rename [.simh-vms-pcap]pcap-vms.dir []
The PCAP-VMS components are presumed (by the descript.mms file) to be
located in a directory at the same level as the directory containing the
simh source files. For example, if these exist here:
[]descrip.mms
[]scp.c
etc.
Then the following should exist:
[-.PCAP-VMS]BUILD_ALL.COM
[-.PCAP-VMS.PCAP-VCI]
[-.PCAP-VMS.PCAPVCM]
etc.
To build simulators:
On a VAX use:
$ MMx
On a Alpha & IA64 hosts use:
$ MMx ! With Ethernet support
$ MMx/MACRO=(NONETWORK=1) ! Without Ethernet support
UNZIP can be found on the VMS freeware CDs, or from www.info-zip.org
MMS (Module Management System) can be licensed from HP/Compaq/Digital as part of the VMS Hobbyist program (it is a component of the DECSET product).
MMK can be found on the VMS freeware CDs, or from http://www.kednos.com/kednos/Open_Source/MMK
DEC C can be licensed from HP/Compaq/Digital as part of the VMS Hobbyist program.
## Problem Reports
If you find problems or have suggestions relating to any simulator or the simh package as a whole, please report these using the github "Issue" interface at https://github.com/simh/simh/issues.
Problem reports should contain;
- a description of the problem
- the simulator you experience the problem with
- your host platform (and OS version)
- how you built the simulator or that you're using prebuilt binaries
- the simulator build description should include the output produced by while building the simulator
- the output of SHOW VERSION while running the simulator which is having an issue
- the simulator configuration file (or commands) which were used when the problem occurred.