You have the SIMH PDP-8 simulator installed and working on the same Linux box as SerialDisk<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nI have set this up under Ubuntu 14.04, running under VirtualBox on a Windows laptop (Lenovo X1). I have not yet tried it on a RaspberryPi.<\/p>\n
The main new item that you will need is a “pdp.ini” script that is customised to interface SIMH to work with SerialDisk.<\/p>\n
Here is the file that I am currently using:<\/p>\n
\r\n# Instructions:\r\n# Run 'pdp8' in this directory, and assuming socat and xterm are installed,\r\n# the server should start automatically and the system should boot.\r\n\r\n:starter\r\nSET ON\r\nON OPENERR\r\nON OPENERR GOTO telerr\r\nat ttix 2222;notelnet\r\nset ttox0 8b\r\necho Starting socat...\r\n#! sleep 1\r\n! socat PTY,echo=0,link=ttyPDP TCP:localhost:2222 &\r\necho Waiting for socat...\r\n! sleep 4\r\necho Starting SerialDisk server...\r\n! xterm -e \"bash -c \\\"..\/server\/os8disk -1 \/media\/sf_ubuntu-shared-folder\/kyle-sd-packs\/diagpack2.rk05 -2 \/media\/sf_ubuntu-shared-folder\/kyle-sd-packs\/pdp8-blank.rk05; exec bash\\\"\" &\r\n! sleep 5\r\necho Booting...\r\nl ..\/bootloader\/bootloader.bin\r\ngo\r\n:byebye\r\ndetach ttix\r\nquit\r\n:telerr\r\necho TTIX has not released port. Retrying now...\r\n! sleep 2\r\ngoto starter\r\n<\/pre>\nNow navigate to the directory ~\/os8diskserver\/SerialDisk\/simh<\/strong>.<\/p>\nYou need to do 3 things here:<\/p>\n
\n- Edit the file disk.cfg. The top line (baud rate) and second line (stop bits) don’t matter much. Set these to 19200 and 1 respectively. The third line must say “ttyPDP” (without the quotation marks), for consistency with the content of the file pdp8.ini<\/li>\n
- Insert a symbolic link called “pdp8” which links to “\/home\/[username]\/simh\/simh-master\/BIN\/pdp8”<\/li>\n
- Insert the file “pdp8.ini”, the content of which is set out above<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
You’re now ready to run “.\/pdp8” from this directory. When you do, SIMH will start up. The start-up script will start “socat” (which forms a pseudo-serial port between SIMH and SerialDisk). After a short delay (to allow socat to start up), the SIMH script will then start SerialDisk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This page describes the process of setting up an interface between SIMH and SerialDisk, so that SIMH has read\/write access to the same image files as SerialDisk serves up to a real PDP-8. Most of what you need to do this is already set up in Kyle’s distribution of SerialDisk. I don’t recall exactly what ..<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2514","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7xTsk-Ey","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2447,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=2447","url_meta":{"origin":2514,"position":0},"title":"SerialDisk Operational Notes","author":"malcolm","date":"1-August-2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I use Kyle Owen's excellent SerialDisk software to run OS\/8 on my PDP-8\/e. This page sets out my notes relating to the ongoing care and maintenance of my existing SerialDisk setup. It does not explain how to initially setup SerialDisk. Note: I also have a separate webpage (not yet on\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3372,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=3372","url_meta":{"origin":2514,"position":1},"title":"OMNIBUS Bootstrap Loader Prototype v1.0","author":"malcolm","date":"23-July-2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This is my first attempt to build a Bootstrap Loader board for the OMNIBUS. The mode of operation is largely modelled on the MI8-E (M847). I have some more information about a real MI8-E here. The OMNIBUS Bootstrap Loader Prototype v1.0 has been constructed and is working well (July 2018).\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/avitech.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/omnibus-bootloader-300x169.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13241,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=13241","url_meta":{"origin":2514,"position":2},"title":"Open-SIMH","author":"malcolm","date":"8-October-2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This page has my notes relating to building and using Open-SIMH, particularly in the context of Windows machines. The website for Open-SIMH is here -> https:\/\/opensimh.org\/ The official Open-SIMH repository can be found here -> https:\/\/github.com\/open-simh\/simh That official Open-SIMH repository has source code only. It does not contain any Windows\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=157","url_meta":{"origin":2514,"position":3},"title":"Linux tips and tricks","author":"malcolm","date":"8-May-2016","format":false,"excerpt":"How do I change the hostname of my RPi? You need to do 3 things: sudo nano vi \/etc\/hostname. You'll find the existing hostname in this file. Update the hostname as desitred, then save and exit. sudo nano \/etc\/hosts. Look for any occurrence of the old hostname in here. Update\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":709,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=709","url_meta":{"origin":2514,"position":4},"title":"PDP-11 Paper Tape BASIC","author":"malcolm","date":"3-July-2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction This page provides an overview of PDP-11 paper tape BASIC, and the computer equipment it was typically used with. It then describes how to load and run PDP-11 BASIC on real PDP-11 hardware, and how it can be run instead on a modern Windows-based PC, under the open-source SIMH\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"DEC-11-AJPB-PB","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/avitech.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/DEC-11-AJPB-PB-300x44.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":986,"url":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/?page_id=986","url_meta":{"origin":2514,"position":5},"title":"Transferring RX01 discs to SIMH","author":"malcolm","date":"1-August-2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk software includes two utilities that are very useful for moving a real RX01 disk to a virtual disk file that can be used with the SIMH PDP-11 simulator. To transfer a real RX01 disc to SIMH, use this process: Put the RX01 disc in an 8-inch floppy\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2514"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2522,"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2514\/revisions\/2522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avitech.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}