How to install ! Nova RDOS on SIMH Nova Emulator?

We can run ! Nova RDOS on the SIMH Nova emulator. First, we need to download the ! Nova RDOS kit for SIMH Nova emulator.

Downloads

You can download the needed kit from the "SIMH Legacy" website:

• ! Nova RDOS kit for SIMH Nova emulator

If you are on Windows, you may need to install additional software such as 7-Zip to extract the kit.

Using ! Nova RDOS

tip

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

Extract the kit you downloaded. Inside you will find two folders. Open the folder named Disks. Create a folder somewhere to store the files for this VM, and move the file named rdos_d31.dsk into it.

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

att dkp0 rdos_d31.dsk
set tti dasher
boot dkp0

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

nova

After the emulator starts, press enter when asked for filename. When asked for date, enter it in MM/DD/YY format. For example, enter 04/13/74. Keep the year in 1970s or 80s, to avoid any issues. Similarly, when asked for time, enter it in HH:MM:SS format. For example, enter 12:55:31.

Now you can enter LIST to see a list of files available:

That's it! We used ! Nova RDOS on SIMH Nova emulator. We can create a shell script to make it easy to launch the VM.

Linux

Create a file called Nova-RDOS.sh with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
nova

Now make the file executable:

chmod +x Nova-RDOS.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 ! Nova RDOS page to learn how to use it.

Windows

Create a file called Nova-RDOS.bat with the following content:

nova

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

Credits

• The disk image and other files used above are from a kit available on SimH "Classic" website.

Video tutorial

Do you want to follow the tutorial by watching a video? We will post a video on our YouTube channel soon.

Archives of this tutorial may be available on Wayback Machine.