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Using E11 to Assemble a File

Marty

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2009
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Boulder , Colorado USA
Hi All;

How Running E11 can I assemble a program that I have created in NotePad, Or is that even possible and what Ending should the File end with, such as .Bin or .Bas and I know that neither one of those are correct for the ending that I would want or need..
I am just using those as an example, so you would know what I am asking..
I want to Type in the different programs that we no longer have the Paper Tape .Bin files for..
Such as Register Test program -- MAINDEC-11-DCKBH-A1-D..
Since I get NO Answers..
I have started to type in the above program, with an .ASM Ending in NotePad, with Most of the Comments Not typed in..

THANK YOU Marty
 
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A little more information might be helpful for those of us reading this. Which DEC OS and language are you intending to use?

If you are using Windows Notepad, it is possible that you are running into encoding problems with sending Unicode files or even the slight differences between Windows ANSI encoding and the ASCII encoding. I would recommend picking up an editor that defaults to ASCII and can change the line ending characters to match the DEC system's requirements.
 
Hi All;
Krebizfan, Thank You for Your Answer.. I haven't even tried to "Run" the program, since I don't know how as of yet..
I wanted to run something like PAL-11, And I don't care which DEC OS, I use as long as I can Assemble the Listing that I am trying to type in..
"" I would recommend picking up an editor that defaults to ASCII and can change the line ending characters to match the DEC system's requirements.""
That hadn't occurred to me, that they would be different, I thought ASCII is ASCII..
Any Suggestions on an Editor that I can DownLoad for Free.. I don't have the Funds to Buy one..
THANK YOU Marty
 
On the SIMH web page http://simh.trailing-edge.com/ there is a pointer to a set of available tools here: http://simh.trailing-edge.com/sources/simtools_v39-0.zip

Within the toolset is MACRO11, the PDP-11 assembler. It is already compiled as a windows executable, but the sources are available so you can recompile if necessary for linux.

I use MACRO11 to write my own diagnostics, using MACRO11 under CYGWIN (linux environment) for windows. Then you can download the assembled binary file to your system.

Highly recommend you get the SIMH toolset, and really SIMH itself, as you can run/debug your PDP-11 programs using SIMH on a windows/linux machine very easily.

Don
 
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Hi All;
Don, Thank You for the information.. I have SIMH, I will access your second link and get these as well.. I have CYGWIN..
I was Told by another member that E11 was better for me to use..
And I know Nothing about Either E11 or SIMH..
I will try and figure out looking How to use SIMH to Assemble the PDP Listings and Make Paper Tape Copies, of files that are NOW Lost..

THANK YOU Marty
 
SIMH or E11 will let you run assembled PDP-11 programs. You don't need them to actually assemble the programs (unless you want to do it in a real DEC environment, like RT-11).

I happen to prefer SIMH, but mostly because I use it for simulating both PDP11 and PDP8 at various times. There is no E8 ...

The 'macro11' and 'dumpobj' tools are want you want to look at, for now.

Don
 
Hi All;
Don, Thank You for Your Answer..

""SIMH or E11 will let you run assembled PDP-11 programs."" That's my point of what I am trying to Do.. All I have are PDF listings, that would need to be Re-Entered and then Assembled and then the OutPut would be Paper Tape like Files that I could Load into my 11/45 using my Absolute Binary Serial Loader.. And then "Run" on my 11/45 to try and determine what is Broken.. So then I could actually Run TU58 or anything else..
My only other choice that I can see is that I would have to Enter it Via the Switch Register and still no way to save it back to a Backup copy that I could Load, when I wipe out Memory, which will happen from time to time.. I would then without any backup copy have to enter it again on the Switch Register..
""The 'macro11' and 'dumpobj' tools are want you want to look at, for now."" I will look those over..
THANK YOU Marty
 
On the SIMH web page http://simh.trailing-edge.com/ there is a pointer to a set of available tools here: http://simh.trailing-edge.com/sources/simtools_v39-0.zip

Within the toolset is MACRO11, the PDP-11 assembler. It is already compiled as a windows executable, but the sources are available so you can recompile if necessary for linux.

I use MACRO11 to write my own diagnostics, using MACRO11 under CYGWIN (linux environment) for windows. Then you can download the assembled binary file to your system.

Highly recommend you get the SIMH toolset, and really SIMH itself, as you can run/debug your PDP-11 programs using SIMH on a windows/linux machine very easily.

Don
I didn't know those tools were there for Simh. I just downloaded them. I have Cygwin installed on
my laptop so can make use of these tools.
 
Hi All;
Tradde, I am Glad that SomeOne is getting some Use from these Postings..
Good Luck with using them and getting them to work..
THANK YOU Marty
 
I didn't know those tools were there for Simh. I just downloaded them. I have Cygwin installed on
my laptop so can make use of these tools.

Actually I think the tools are precompiled .exe files useful as Windows command line executables. However cygwin can run these directly as well.

One thing I forgot was that there is no tool in that package that will take the .obj output of MACRO11 and turn it into a loadable .bin file (ie, there is no linker in that package). the DUMPOBJ tool just dumps the object file out (more for debugging) which is not what is wanted.

In the process of developing all the M9312 images I wrote a simple :) perl script that reads .obj files and can turn them into a number of different formats (ie, M9312 prom images, .bin loadable images, etc). Those tools are available here: http://www.ak6dn.dyndns.org/PDP-11/M9312/ via the 'tools' link in the top documentation.

Given a choice I will typically write a program in perl (so I always have the source and never have to recompile...) unless it is for some reason very performance sensitive, then I will usually go to 'c'.

Later tonite I can post the makefiles and macro11 sources for a number of PDP-11 diagnostic test programs I wrote (ie, those available on the 11XX_9.DSK here: http://ak6dn.dyndns.org/PDP-11/TU58/ ) but I am not in a position to do that until later today.

Don
 
I solved this issue of creating BINARY output from PAL11 source files using MACRO-11 tools on RSX11M when doing ODTX for T11 back in the mid 80s.

I don't recall all the details, but it involved adding / changing compiler directives to the sources (MAC files) which told the Assembler to produce listings and output in the format I wanted. (Absolute, non-relocatable) There were probably also some command line switches. I do not recall if a Link was required to get output suitable for ROMs, but a Link was necessary to produce a TSK image that could be saved to a RX02 Boot block (VMR'd) for use on the 70. (another application)

Hope that helps someone with the pitfalls - I don't recall all the specifics ATM. If I can find my work files, I'll make another post. The T11 ODTX listing is posted already - you might want to look at it for MACRO-11 directives and output format.

** Remember that ODTX uses non-DEC SLU on a non-DEC system bus, so it's not useful on any DEC hardware - only as an example as noted.**
 
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Hi All;
Thank You, Don and RSX11M for the Help and Clearification..
Don, I uploaded the Tool You spoke about in Your Posting.. THANK YOU.. That is likely just what I need, for some of what I need to do..
I will need to investigate it further..
THANK YOU marty
 
Hi All;
Don, I found that there could be a problem with running the two programs in Tools, under Windows.. So what I did was take the CYGWIN DLL file from the TU58em file and copied it to the Tools directory..
THANK YOU Marty
 
The CYGWYN DLL file(s) just need to be in your search path so they can be found, if needed, by any CYGWIN compiled executables. If you don't install CYGWIN then having the DLL in the same directory is the easiest. However, if you have CYGWIN installed then you don't need (or want) that local DLL file anyway.

Don
 
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