Where can I get a good simulator/emulator to learn to use and program a pdp8?

[rorypoole]

Where can I get a good simulator/emulator to learn to use and program a pdp8? I have only used Basic in the past

 

[Chuck(G)]

Isn't there one for SIMH?

 

[tradde]

Isn't there one for SIMH?

I use Simh quite often. It is very good.

 

[rorypoole]

thanks

 

[NeXT]

If you insist on full-on simulation there's also a Java emulator with peripheral support.

http://www.vandermark.ch/pdp8/index.php?n=PDP8.Emulator

 

[RSX11M+]

If you insist on full-on simulation there's also a Java emulator with peripheral support.

http://www.vandermark.ch/pdp8/index.php?n=PDP8.Emulator

Never saw that one before - very cool.

 

[Lawrence Woodman]

The Java emulator looks very good, but if you decide to go for simh, which while alas not having a GUI, is better known, better supported and by the looks of it more complete, I have written an article about how to get started with it: Emulating a DEC PDP-8 with SimH. As well as a couple of other articles on using the Symbolic Tape Editor to edit paper tape on a PDP-8 and running 4K FORTRAN on a PDP-8. Hopefully these should get you up and running pretty quickly.

 

[Lou - N2MIY]

I personally use SpareTime Gizmos Win8 emulator: http://www.sparetimegizmos.com/Software/WinEight.htm . It works very well and emulates an 8/e or Intersil/Harris 6120.

Lou

 

[nigwil]

I particularly like this one for OS X, looks very complete, nice looking UI and supports some interesting boards (for the various timeshared PDP-8/E OSes):

http://www.bernhard-baehr.de/pdp8e/pdp8e.html

 

[DaveH]

Wow, that does look COOL, pity the macs I own are all very early and I doubt will take OSx, mind you as I do own serveral 8's i dont realy NEED an emulator
Dave

 

[Old Computers]

http://www.pdp8.net/

This site has an actual PDP-8 you can run over then internet. It also has a front panel GUI that works as if you were programming it in person.

 

[tradde]

I particularly like this one for OS X, looks very complete, nice looking UI and supports some interesting boards (for the various timeshared PDP-8/E OSes):

http://www.bernhard-baehr.de/pdp8e/pdp8e.html

I bought a Mac Mini several years ago just so I could try that. Very impressive.

 

[nigwil]

There appears to be an older version that works across a wide range of Macintosh, including 68K:

The simulator is based on the PDP-8/E emulator (out-dated version from 1993) of Bill Haygood. It runs on 68K-, PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs with System 2.0.1 to Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” and on various Macintosh emulators. (It does not run with Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” (and newer) because that versions no longer support PowerPC applications.) Here you can see the PDP-8/E Simulator simultaneously running on Mac OS X 10.2 “Jaguar” and on a Mac Plus with System 2.0.1. The Mac Plus “Mr. T” is emulated by Mini vMac.

It looks nearly as good too:

 

[RSX11M+]

Till I see that old MAC font, it doesn't occur to me how much I miss it.

Sometimes I'm really glad to be alive in these days.

 

[rorypoole]

I better wait for my PDP-8 introduction to programming handbook to be posted.
thanks for all the feedback!

 

[NeXT]

There appears to be an older version that works across a wide range of Macintosh, including 68K:



It looks nearly as good too:

I wonder if that was the latest version that haygood had? His site is dead so I can't check to see.

 

[Lawrence Woodman]

I particularly like this one for OS X, looks very complete, nice looking UI and supports some interesting boards (for the various timeshared PDP-8/E OSes):

http://www.bernhard-baehr.de/pdp8e/pdp8e.html

Wow, that looks really good. I wish I had the time to port it to Linux. Maybe one day I'll have the time to create a GUI for simh to do something similar.

 

[daver2]

I have downloaded most of these and have had a play but have settled on Brian Shelburne's at "http://www4.wittenberg.edu/academics/mathcomp/bjsdir/PDP8HomePage.htm".

It's a nice simple DOS program. Very simple text-mode interface but still provides access to all of the 'internals' so you can see what's going on.

It contains an editor and an assembler and comes with documentation (for both the emulator and the PDP8 instruction set). The documentation is well worth a read even if you decide the emulator is not for you as it is very well written and very clear.

Dave