hp2114 basic

[J. David Bryan]

On 28 Mar 2005 at 13:43, Tim Riker wrote:

> Now I'm stumped on getting it bootstrapped. Not sure where to put the
> tty port number info. 

I've had a look at Jeff's page and a quick look at the software.  There are 
two parts to the BASIC system: the interpreter itself, and a "preparer" 
that configures the interpreter for the specific hardware on which it will 
run.  You run the preparer, which reads the unconfigured interpreter in via 
paper tape, configures it, and punches a new tape that is ready to run on 
the specified hardware setup.  Thereafter, you just load the prepared tape 
and run it.

Source files 1-9 assemble into the preparer, and 10-17 into the 
interpreter.  After assembly, the preparer is loaded (e.g., on SIMH), the 
I/O slot number of the teletype is entered into the S register ("deposit S 
11" for SIMH), and the program is started at location 2 ("run 2").  It will 
print "PHOTO READER I/O ADDRESS?" and a whole bunch of other configuration 
questions.

You can verify this by using the pre-assembled "prepare.abs" and 
"hpbasic.abs" files on Jeff's page.  If the above doesn't work using the 
files you assembled, then I'd suspect an assembly problem or transcription 
error in the source files.

Note that the interpreter doesn't use the MUX device (SIMH's 12920A 
implementation), but only the 12531C TTY device.  It supports four 
terminals via four TTY cards.  However, SIMH supports only one of each 
device, so you'll only be able to use a single TTY.

Finally, and not to chase you away from here :-), but there's a SIMH users' 
mailing list, where questions such as the issue of SIMH using 100% of the 
CPU time have been discussed in some detail.  Subscription instructions are 
available via the "Help with SIMH" link from the main SIMH Web page.

                                      -- Dave