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How to install ! 4K DMS on SIMH?

SIMH PDP-8 emulator with ! 4K DMS

We can run ! 4K DMS on the SIMH PDP-8 emulator. First, we need to download the ! 4K DMS kit.

Downloads

You can download the kit needed to run ! 4K DMS on the SIMH PDP-8 emulator from the "SIMH Legacy" website:

Using ! 4K DMS

tip

If you have not already installed SIMH PDP-8 emulator, see the VirtualHub Setup tutorial on how to do so on Linux and Windows.

Extract the kit you downloaded. Inside you will find several files. Create a folder somewhere to store the files for this VM, and move the file named dms.df32 into it.

Now we will create a config file for our VM. Create a text file called pdp8.ini with the following content in the VM folder:

set df enabled
att df dms.df32
boot -d df

pdp8.ini

Now open a terminal and move to the VM folder. Run the following command to start the emulator:

pdp8

pdp8

After the emulator starts, type PIP and press enter. Then press L. You will see the following screen:

.PIP -> *OPT-L

Type S: and press enter. It will list all the files available on the disk.

List of files in ! 4K DMS

That's it! We used ! 4K DMS. We can create a shell script to make it easy to launch the VM.

Linux

Create a file called 4K-DMS.sh with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
pdp8

Now make the file executable:

chmod +x 4K-DMS.sh

Now you can start the VM using the shell script. For example, on KDE you can right-click the file and choose Run in Konsole or on GNOME, where you can right-click the file and choose Run as executable. The VM will start.

See the manuals section on the main ! 4K DMS page to learn how to use it.

Windows

Create a file called 4K-DMS.bat with the following content:

pdp8

Now you can start the VM by double-clicking the shell script. See the manuals section on the main ! 4K DMS page to learn how to use it.

Credits

Video tutorial

Do you want to follow the tutorial by watching a video? Here it is:


Archives of this tutorial are available on Wayback Machine.


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