MiSTer FPGA Forum

This is my alpha version MiSTer port DVK core.

https://github.com/xolod79/MC1201

You can play original Tetris by Alexey Pajitnov!

xolod79 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:22 pm This is my alpha version MiSTer port DVK core.
https://github.com/xolod79/MC1201

NML32 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 9:22 pm I didn't have any luck booting from my 1GB SD card. The drive light just stayed on. No issues using my SanDisk Ultra 128GB SD card.

xolod79 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 8:22 pm This is my alpha version MiSTer port DVK core.
https://github.com/xolod79/MC1201
You can play original Tetris by Alexey Pajitnov!

NML32 wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 9:22 pm I'm able to get the computer to boot from the secondary SD card and I'm able to issue the commands B RK0 or DX0 or MY0 and list the directories.
At this point, I'm not sure what else to do.

antonie wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:35 am Hi if this Soviet clone is anything like the original, have a look at this very interesting youtube video about booting BSD Unix on a PDP-11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYng1yypNCA

pgimeno wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:45 am Would the simh source code be any help? I have a PDP-11 running UNIX 7 under simh; I used these instructions: http://www.jdpressman.com/2015/11/27/ho ... 15%29.html

pgimeno wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:45 am Would the simh source code be any help? I have a PDP-11 running UNIX 7 under simh with these instructions.

xolod79 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 8:18 pm Image from https://zx-pk.ru/threads/24962-unix-dly ... post794013

pgimeno wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 11:32 pm

xolod79 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 8:18 pm Image from https://zx-pk.ru/threads/24962-unix-dly ... post794013

Thanks. How do you boot it? I've tried with B RK0 and I get a : prompt but entering lsx as in the picture doesn't do anything, the : prompt reappears.

Entering B DX0 or B MY0 seems to hang with the Disk LED on, as if waiting for a disk to be ready or something like that.

pgimeno wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 7:18 pm Thanks, I've done that and I managed to get a # prompt, but then it crashes (returns to the @ prompt after printing an hex number) at anything I attempt to do. Subsequent boots don't work, as if the SD card got corrupted. Rewriting it I can try again, but with the same result.

pgimeno wrote: ↑Wed Jun 09, 2021 7:18 pm Thanks, I've done that and I managed to get a # prompt, but then it crashes (returns to the @ prompt after printing an hex number) at anything I attempt to do. Subsequent boots don't work, as if the SD card got corrupted. Rewriting it I can try again, but with the same result.

xolod79 wrote: ↑Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:54 pm did you get LSX running?

JamesH wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 1:13 pm Thanks a lot for your work, this is great!

I do have one question not related to SD cards. How do we use the core's UART? After using "uartmode 2" there are some meaningful bits avaiable via ttyS1, but it looks like some phantom input (?) is generated most of the time when using microcom (ssh to mister from xterm set to vt52 profile), as something like

Update: when I socat'ed ttyS1 to a mame instance emulating IE15 terminal, I am getting some sensible output. Would still appreciate if someone can confirm the expected way of using core's UART.

xolod79 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 4:24 pm picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyS1
In ODT, you need to give commands in capital letters, switch CAPSLOCK or hold Shift.
@B MY1

cathrynmataga wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 9:31 pm Is anyone running RT-11? That's closer to my experience with old DEC.

Just sharing my experience of setting up a remote console for DVK/MC1201 core. Why? Because I wanted to have a shared clipboard and interested in running some compilers and stuff like that. Text based games are working, too Updated: Nov 4, uartmode typo. Nov 25, vtwrap page has gone south.

Pre-requisites:

• *nix system, using Debian myself

• GNU screen (apt install screen)

• vtwrap application to ensure VT52/15IE terminal support (link1, link2, link3 (tar.gz), pre-built static binary attached)

• SSH (apt install openssh-client)

Using a keyboard and a screen attached to the MISTer device launch MC1201 core, open OSD and switch "Console:" to "Console: UART". You may want to set "CPU slow:" to "ON" if you plan on running a game.

Start GNU screen to [indirectly] handle ancient KOI7 (vtwrap can translate KOI7 into more or less supported KOI8, which will be translated into your actual termial's locale by GNU screen). Note: this is not the only way to do it, but I find it easy (and it keeps your SSH session alive as well).

debian$ screen

The rest happens "inside" the screen session, assuming you're using local UTF-8 locale for simplicity (google how to set up encoding if you don't)

Configure screen window to use KOI8-R encoding (this can be done at any stage before running software using KOI7)

C-a: (that's Ctrl+A followed by colon)
encoding koi8-r (you type that at the ':' prompt)

Start a wrapper emulating Soviet 15IE (see footnote 1) terminal:

debian$ vtwrap -t 15ie

Some MISTer console output will look weird, just ignore it.

SSH to the mister

debian$ ssh root@mister

set uartmode to "2" (1 - ppp, 2 - serial console on ttyS1, 3,5 - midilink)

/root# uartmode 2

make sure the mode is set up properly (from time to time MISTer may reset it)

/root# uartmode

you should see the following, if you do not, re-run "uartmode 2"

ttyS1: 115200

launch picocom (microcom seems to be working with vtwrap, does NOT without it), picocom defaults to 9600 baud, so specifing correct line speed is essential:

/root# picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyS1

exit picocom when needed with C-a a C-x

At this point you better turn on CAPS LOCK as most of the commands are uppercase (lowercase English letters are mapped to Cyrillic when using KOI7)

Boot RT-11 with games image:

	@B
	$MY0

Other images available:
RK0 - RT-11FB (S) V05.04.D
DX0 - XXDP+
MY0 - RT-11SJ V05.01 + Soviet games

1. vtwrap has the following command line switches: "-s - clears 8'th bit of each character", "-t TYPE" sets emulated terminal type, supported vt52, cm7209 and 15ie

P.S. https://pdp-11.org.ru/~form/ctakah.html mentions SET TRA:CM$7209 and SET NO TRA commands, have not tried those, I think these are really necessary if you need to use Russian software and have Soviet RT-11 (FODOS, RAFOS) variants. The page seems to be no longer available, here is the latest wayback machine snapshot. upd 2023: Original HTML pages describing vtwrap seem to disappear quickly and while it's possible find some bits with a clever search-foo when you know what you are looking for, project description has vanished from the Internet. Hence I decided to post the contents of the original tgz to GitHub. Happy to transfer ownership, if someone (original author?) wants to take over as I have no plans on enhancing/modifying it.

TODO: find out 15ie/vt52 reset sequence