Adventure in Ersatz-11 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

24 Oct 2001

If I'd seem the message I'd have told you most of the PDP-11 games that
eat
memory run under the RT-11 SJ monitor.  Advent is definately one.

Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Gooijen H &lt;GOOI(a)oce.nl&gt;
To: &#39;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&#39; &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt;
Date: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 11:32 AM
Subject: RE: Adventure in Ersatz-11

...
 Stupid that I did not think of trying SJ.
With SJ entering .R ADVENT starts Adventure also!
I assumed that VBG was for Virtual BackGround, so
nice to be comfirmed on that.
Indeed, I have E11 running on an 486DX2/66, but I
cannot give an idea of how fast it runs, compared
to a PDP-11. Although E11 can be set to an 11/70,
I have set it to /35-40 because that is also the
*real* hardware I have. Never set it to /34(A) or
to /44. Both those systems I also have running.
Next time that I start the 11/35 I will run ADVENT
on both of them and measure the time until the
welcome message appears on the screen.

For the "blinkenlights" check out my webpage.
http://home.hetnet.nl/~tshaj/pdpsite/pdpstartpage.html

then click in the left pane on the link Homebrew 'PDP-11'.
At this moment only the LEDs of the data bus blink.
I hope to add a piece of hardware that 'talks' to Ersatz-11
so that the address bus LEDs are also active *and* that the
switches function as on the real thing. The goal is that
the hardware design can facilitate *any* real PDP-11 console
that has switches and lights, from an 11/10 to an 11/70.
Of course, this project needs the cooperation of John Wilson,
and I had already some preliminary contacts with him.
He also likes the option to connect a real console to the
demo(!) version of Ersatz-11.

-Henk.

  -----Original Message-----
 From: Jerome Fine [mailto:jhfine@idirect.com]
 Sent: woensdag 24 oktober 2001 0:41
 To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
 Subject: Re: Adventure in Ersatz-11

 Gooijen H wrote: 
  Yes !! 
 Jerome Fine replies:

 Thank you for the feed back.  I was not sure how much memory
 ADVENT requires.  You might also try:
 BOOT  RT11SJ
 if you wish.

  Thanks very much, Jerome.
 Booting RT-11FB and then running ADVENT still produces
 the "Insufficient memory" fatal error.
 However, VBGEXE works fine !
 After the "Welcome to Adventure!! Would you like instructions?"
 and entering 'YES", it goes: Somewhere nearby is Colossal Cave,
 etc.
 This means that I am now going to play Adventure. This has a
 serious drawback on the expansion of my website ...
 I am playing it on my "homebrew-PDP" with the BLINKENLIGHTS on!!
 On my website this project (early phase) has a separate link.
 BTW. What is VBGEXE, what do the letters stand for?
 Thanks again,
 Henk. 
 "EXEcute Virtual BackGround program" is how I think of the letters
 with the understanding that the word EXEcute is then switched
 to the end.

 A few points worth noting.

 (a)  If FOO.SAV requires any arguments as in:
 "RUN   DEV:FOO.SAV  arguments" or replace RUN with VBGEXE,
 then they must be on the same line.  The alternative is the
 put all three
 parts of the command on separate lines.  Otherwise, with just
 "VBGEXE  DEV:FOO.SAV" on the first line, somehow the request
 for information expects the arguments to already be there and if not,
 just exits.  Entering:
 VBGEXE
 DEV:FOO.SAV
 arguments
 on three separate lines works as well.

 (b)  The command:
 SRUN   VBGEXE.SAV/TERMINAL:n/LEVEL:m/NAME:utility
 also works very well when you want to run a system job at a
 higher priority.
 TERMINAL is only useful with a system that has multi-terminal support
 LEVEL specifies the system job number ( 1=>6 )
 NAME can be used to automatically select an executable file
 called SY:utility.SAV
 One minor problem is that if name is omitted, then only ONE
 instance of
 VBGEXE can be invoked as a system job since the high memory
 GRCBs (Global
 Region Control Blocks) must all have different names.  I have
 a small patch
 with allows the user to do the command:
 SRUN  VBGEXE.SAV/TERMINAL:n/LEVEL:m/NAME:VBGEXm
 If that is done, each GRCB is given the name VBGEXm making them all
 different.  This means that no program can have the name VBGEX(1=>6),
 a restriction that I assume can be lived with.

 I also remember that modifying TECO to be named VMUNG so that
 "VBGEXE  VMUNG  arguments"
 would work the same as
 "MUNG  arguments"
 but use the full 64 KBytes allowed by VBGEXE.

 By the way, I assume that you are using E11 on a PC.  Which hardware
 and how fast do you find that the code runs compared to any
 real PDP-11
 hardware.  Plus, I can't remember about the "BLINKENLIGHTS" - what
 did you do to have those available?

 Sincerely yours,

 Jerome Fine