Gesswein MF emulator on an 11/73 with RQDX3

[leegleason]

I recently got one of the David Gesswein MFM emulators to use on an 11/73 with an RQDX3, in a BA23. Aside from being reluctant to enable its ethernet port, it seems to work fine, when I manually start the emulation program. I'm having trouble getting it to automatically start emulation at power up as a service. Has anyone successfully gotten this to work? Did you have to do anything out of the ordinary to get it to go?

 

[g4ugm]

Well I use one in an old IBM screen controller. No problems getting it to AutoStart but do check the file locations. Dave has a list for this, You might get more help on there

 

[shirsch]

David's default SD card image is configured for startup at boot, but you may need to edit the configuration file in /etc. All of mine are setup in this manner. What have you tried?

 

[leegleason]

David's default SD card image is configured for startup at boot,

Mine actually came configured for manual start of the emulator software. HIs web pagesadvises, that to switch to automatic start at boot time, to issue the command

systemctl enable mfm_emu.service

When I do that, though, and trstart, it doesn't work - DU0: is not found. Additionally, when started with that in effect, the system can't find the RX50 and boot from that either. When I go back to manual start of the emulator, the virtual disk is visible again and the RX50 works. As well, the ethernet fon the emulator card very often does not come online.

 

[leegleason]

Well, it turns out to be user error - and I'm the user. The instructions and example for manual start used emu_file as the filename for the virtual disk. I didn't notice that the auto start instructions specify a different filename - emufile_a. Naturally, the auto started service couldn't find the file by the wrong name. I renamed the file to the right name, and now auto start works fine. This isn't the first time I've gotten bit by not reading the instructions for something carefully.

The ethernet still doesn't work reliably, but since this will be buried in a BA23, I don't plan to log into it while it's in use, so that's more of an inconvenience than anything else.

 

[shirsch]

Well, it turns out to be user error - and I'm the user. The instructions and example for manual start used emu_file as the filename for the virtual disk. I didn't notice that the auto start instructions specify a different filename - emufile_a. Naturally, the auto started service couldn't find the file by the wrong name. I renamed the file to the right name, and now auto start works fine. This isn't the first time I've gotten bit by not reading the instructions for something carefully.

The ethernet still doesn't work reliably, but since this will be buried in a BA23, I don't plan to log into it while it's in use, so that's more of an inconvenience than anything else.

Great to hear that you have it going! I've had periodic problems with BBB ethernet connectivity as well, but have learned to grit my teeth and reboot until it finally comes up.