Mike_Z
Veteran Member
I think my PDP8E machine is working well enough to attempt making a RK05 Disk emulator. Each program that I have entered via the front panel switches either worked or didn't because I made an entry error.
I decided to use a Dell GX520 Windows XP SP3 machine for the emulator. It has a Pentium 4 running at 3.0 Gc, with 2 Gb of RAM and an 80GB IDE hard disk.
I've decided to follow Kyle Owens web site page on GITHUB. https://github.com/drovak/os8diskserver/blob/master/SerialDisk/docs/how-to.md
This software should emulator a RK05 drive via a serial port to the PDP8E, Aync Comm board M8650. My M8650 boards have the device select configured for 03 and 04 Rx/Tx. I will have to change one of them when the time comes.
I down loaded Kyle's zip file, which are the same files as on the web site. For some reason I can not view the *.MD doc files on my computer and have to look at them on the internet. Minor problem.
The next item is to compile the software. I don't pretend to actually know what I'm doing in each case here and am just following Kyle's instructions. Apparently, the code is written in C and set up for Linux. Having limited knowledge of these, and also limited Windows, I read about and decided to use the CYGWIN program. This program allows one to run Linux programs on Windows. Chime in if I'm not speaking correctly, remember I'm a draftee here. So.... on the WWW.CYGWIN.com page, a little down from the top there are download links for 32 and 64 bit versions. I selected the 32 bit, 'setup-x86exe'. I just clicked on the link and followed the instructions and it worked. I did not install any extra packages, the GCC ones. Did that later. I also saved the install program in my C:\cygwin directory. You may need it for more installation stuff.
I then Googled how to install GCC and found preshing.com/20141108/how-to-install-the-latest-gcc-on-windows. This explained how to install the GCC program via the command line. Here again I followed the instructions.
To install the GCC stuff, In a Windows CMD box, I had to change the directory to C:\CYGWIN. This is where the program resides, and then entered.
c:\cygwin>set-x86.exe -q -P GCC-G++ -P make -PDIFFUTILS -P LIBMPFR-devel -P LIBGMP-devel -PLIBMPC-devel
I don't know what all this stuff is. It must be the tools needed to compile the software. I do know that if you are using a 64 bit machine the directory name has 64 in it and the setup name also has 64 in it. Those are the changes needed. Also be careful entering the exact words. Don't copy mine, use the website's, I'm a poor typer.
If it works the command line will return with no errors.
Here is where I stumbled a little for a while. I could not get GCC to find the files. So I had to change the path in windows to include c:\cygwin\bin. In XP, that would be Control Panel - System - Advanced - environmental variables. I added c:\cygwin\bin and c:\cygwin. Then restarted the machine. This was not on Kyle's page.
Then back to the command line box. Change the directory to where you have the SerialDisk\Server files. Type in
GCC -o os8disk server.c
The command line should return with no errors. Mine did. otherwise you have to investigate. I tested the program by running os8disk.exe and received the response that Kyle mentioned.
$./os8disk
PDP-8 Disk Server for OS/8 V1.0
........etal
All this stuff is in Kyle's How To file.
Next, is installing the system handler. In the command line box change the directory to SerialDisk\installer. Here again I stumbled for a while until I noticed that Kyle's website was calling for a file called instlhndl.exe, but in my directory it was spelled inst(no l)hndl.exe. I typed in
GCC -o insthndl handler_installer.c
This also worked because the command line returned with no errors.
Now the handler is used to make the rk05 disk image. I was a little confused here. I at first thought that I had to go to David Gesswein's website to get it, but the diagpack2.rk05 file was already in my disks directory. Next I typed in on the command line box
inst(no l)hndl [handler directory]/sys_handler.bin [disk directory]/diagpack2.rk05
Here again I stumbled because of poor typing. The directory names are quite long. I also noticed that the diagpack2.rk05 is not in the disks directory but in the sub \omnibus\system\ of the disks.
Anyway this worked and I'm up to Configuring the server, but the dog has to go out and I had enough for today. If anyone sees something I did wrong let me know. I figure I may have to do this a few times to get everything correct. I want these notes to help through the second, third etc. times.
Thanks Mike
I decided to use a Dell GX520 Windows XP SP3 machine for the emulator. It has a Pentium 4 running at 3.0 Gc, with 2 Gb of RAM and an 80GB IDE hard disk.
I've decided to follow Kyle Owens web site page on GITHUB. https://github.com/drovak/os8diskserver/blob/master/SerialDisk/docs/how-to.md
This software should emulator a RK05 drive via a serial port to the PDP8E, Aync Comm board M8650. My M8650 boards have the device select configured for 03 and 04 Rx/Tx. I will have to change one of them when the time comes.
I down loaded Kyle's zip file, which are the same files as on the web site. For some reason I can not view the *.MD doc files on my computer and have to look at them on the internet. Minor problem.
The next item is to compile the software. I don't pretend to actually know what I'm doing in each case here and am just following Kyle's instructions. Apparently, the code is written in C and set up for Linux. Having limited knowledge of these, and also limited Windows, I read about and decided to use the CYGWIN program. This program allows one to run Linux programs on Windows. Chime in if I'm not speaking correctly, remember I'm a draftee here. So.... on the WWW.CYGWIN.com page, a little down from the top there are download links for 32 and 64 bit versions. I selected the 32 bit, 'setup-x86exe'. I just clicked on the link and followed the instructions and it worked. I did not install any extra packages, the GCC ones. Did that later. I also saved the install program in my C:\cygwin directory. You may need it for more installation stuff.
I then Googled how to install GCC and found preshing.com/20141108/how-to-install-the-latest-gcc-on-windows. This explained how to install the GCC program via the command line. Here again I followed the instructions.
To install the GCC stuff, In a Windows CMD box, I had to change the directory to C:\CYGWIN. This is where the program resides, and then entered.
c:\cygwin>set-x86.exe -q -P GCC-G++ -P make -PDIFFUTILS -P LIBMPFR-devel -P LIBGMP-devel -PLIBMPC-devel
I don't know what all this stuff is. It must be the tools needed to compile the software. I do know that if you are using a 64 bit machine the directory name has 64 in it and the setup name also has 64 in it. Those are the changes needed. Also be careful entering the exact words. Don't copy mine, use the website's, I'm a poor typer.
If it works the command line will return with no errors.
Here is where I stumbled a little for a while. I could not get GCC to find the files. So I had to change the path in windows to include c:\cygwin\bin. In XP, that would be Control Panel - System - Advanced - environmental variables. I added c:\cygwin\bin and c:\cygwin. Then restarted the machine. This was not on Kyle's page.
Then back to the command line box. Change the directory to where you have the SerialDisk\Server files. Type in
GCC -o os8disk server.c
The command line should return with no errors. Mine did. otherwise you have to investigate. I tested the program by running os8disk.exe and received the response that Kyle mentioned.
$./os8disk
PDP-8 Disk Server for OS/8 V1.0
........etal
All this stuff is in Kyle's How To file.
Next, is installing the system handler. In the command line box change the directory to SerialDisk\installer. Here again I stumbled for a while until I noticed that Kyle's website was calling for a file called instlhndl.exe, but in my directory it was spelled inst(no l)hndl.exe. I typed in
GCC -o insthndl handler_installer.c
This also worked because the command line returned with no errors.
Now the handler is used to make the rk05 disk image. I was a little confused here. I at first thought that I had to go to David Gesswein's website to get it, but the diagpack2.rk05 file was already in my disks directory. Next I typed in on the command line box
inst(no l)hndl [handler directory]/sys_handler.bin [disk directory]/diagpack2.rk05
Here again I stumbled because of poor typing. The directory names are quite long. I also noticed that the diagpack2.rk05 is not in the disks directory but in the sub \omnibus\system\ of the disks.
Anyway this worked and I'm up to Configuring the server, but the dog has to go out and I had enough for today. If anyone sees something I did wrong let me know. I figure I may have to do this a few times to get everything correct. I want these notes to help through the second, third etc. times.
Thanks Mike