[sebhc] H8 Emulator update

[Jack Rubin]

> 
> I have added some background information to the help file, 
> improved the README, and (probably of most interest to some 
> of you guys): extended the virtual I/O device interface, and 
> documented more simulator data areas, allowing much more 
> capability in user installed virtual devices.
> 
> Please forward any comments, change/addition requests etc. ASAP.

Dave, this just keeps getting better - I'm having a lot more trouble
breaking it! ;>)

- here's the only way I could do it this time around - my normal ini
file looks like this: 

L=pam8go.hex
W1=hdos20.h8d
XS=0

However, if I start with an .ini file that _only_ loads the rom -

L=pam8go.hex
 
and don't mount a disk (f5) before hitting GO (4) then the entire
emulator just vanishes! This is in a WinXP environment - I havn't tried
it under Win2K or DOS. 

Here's a minor quibble - would you consider renaming the f5 function to
"load" or "insert" a disk? Mount isn't really correct since after I
mount a disk with f5, my next step is to return to tty mode and mount
the disk again. 

Another "problem" is with the low level commands INIT and SYSGEN - if I
try to run INIT, it exits gracefully with the error message "Wrong type
of media ...". I can ctrl-D out of it and reboot, but I can't initialize
a disk. Likewise with SYSGEN - if I attempt to gen a disk, I get an
error saying the disk is not initialized by the correct version of INIT
(I haven't tried to figure out which disk-images were made from disks
created under which versions of HDOS, so this may be a legitimate
response). 

I have no problem deleting/copying/writing to disk, so within the OS
everything works well, but my impression is that these utilities
essentially work outside of HDOS in their own environment. Still, it
seems like they ought to work if everything about the emulation is on
target.

Finally, just a few more suggestions, related to disk handling. Would
you add a couple of "indicators" to the f5/D display so that we could
see if drives are loaded R or W/R? Or if you felt really ambitious, how
about a persistent version of the f5 information bar that would show
drive, label of disk loaded, w/r status and drive select? It's becoming
obvious that we somehow have to find you an H17 setup so that it will be
"your" system!

There is a 6-page "HDOS Cookbook" that is part of the software reference
manual which I think would be helpful to museum visitors. I'll try to
find the correct 1.x version and OCR it down to a minimal text file if
you would like to include it as part of the "display".

Awesome!

Best,
Jack


--
Delivered by the SEBHC Mailing List