SIMH PDP-8 question

[Don North]

On 9/18/2015 7:08 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote:
> From: Charles: Thursday, September 17, 2015 6:46 PM
>> Anyway, I'd like to do the same thing in SIMH (get the text file into Focal 
>> and then save it as a Focal program). Is there any way to do this with SIMH? 
>> Can I assign the text file to a paper tape reader, for example?
>
> This should work fairly easily using the high speed paper tape peripherals of 
> SIMH.  You can equip an output file for the punch, punch the "tape", then 
> equip that file for the reader, and I believe the asterisk command or some 
> such Focal feature will read it in.  Save to disk, and you'll have your text 
> file converted.
>
> Low speed paper tape on SIMH is more problematic, as you don't really have an 
> 8 bit channel, flow control isn't implemented, etc.  (At least on the console 
> that is shared with the SIMH command prompt.)
>
>    Vince

I have also used 'expect' to drive SIMH to have my 'expect' robot play 
tic-tac-toe vs the PDP-8 (endlessly ...) and to drive files into FOCAL and BASIC 
from the command line as typed text.

Don