This is the PDP-8 Emulator of the National Centre for Minimal- and Retro- Computing Stuttgart - Germany written mostly in 8086 - 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 show OS8-directory R copy an OS/-file to DOS W 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