Hi Vasile and you’re welcome. This is Johnny Billquist’s — he might have a more fresh copy but here’s the old one I used on 2.11BSD just yesterday. I don’t know where else to find it other than asking Johnny.
You’ll need a fairly recent 2BSD system, if I remember right, for it to compile. Pls find tar attachment (& sorry to the rest of the list ,I don’t know how to do attachments :)
Love the one version of the story, btw! Good luck. > On May 27, 2026, at 16:26, Vasile Buruiana via cctalk <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hello and thank you for the hints. > > Short version: > Would you please tell me some more details about where to find " *Johnny's > tpw under 2.11BSD* " utility, which *"it achieved writing simh TAP to a > real TK50"* ? It will be of great help. > > Long version: > > I'm working at a PERTEC-interfaced tape emulator using some Am2900 > bit-slice processors and a STM32. Currently I somehow replicated the simh > .TAP but it does not fully follow and respect its format. My emulator reads > tapes, dumps content inside 4 x 32MB EDO RAM for the data, and 1 x 4 MB EDO > RAM for the 'map of the tape' - file sizes, filemark separators and so on. > When EOT is reached, the tape is rewinded while the big RAM content is > dumped [AM2900 side] into a microSD card [STM32 side] while following the > tape map from the smaller RAM, in such a way that the resulting file > becomes a frankensteined simh tap file. It can also do the reverse - reads > that frankenstein TAP [STM32] and writes it to the tape. > The STM32 acts like an i/o interface to the microSD and also as a user > interface. All the rest (i/o protocol, interrupts, ram transfers) is done > with physical gates and some diode logic ROM, for me to keep the stm32 > software part as simple as possible. Whatever I could implement with > external hardware, I did. > > The big weirdness is as following: whatever format is dumped from the > physical tape inside my "not-quite-simh TAP" file, it appears to be > converted and written correctly back on another physical 9-track tape, as > it can be correctly read by another frankensteined half-breed dinosaur made > from some communist Romanian clones of PDP11 (called Coral 4030) - the > boards - and French CII IRIS50 (called Felix C-256) - the i/o peripherals: > tape drives, punched card, cassette tapes and so on. > > However my "not-quite-simh" TAP is not accepted by simh and also not > accepted by the 'unvtape' program from you, mr. Jacob Ritorto, from your > github. > > But if the STM32 sends data to its own RAM chip (the board containing > the stm32 is *waveshare's core429i*), then extracts it back, the simh file > format result is as perfect as it is supposed to be. But I can't use that > RAM with the rest of the system, as there are not enough spare i/o ports > left in order to talk to the AM2900 side. > > The EDO Rams are tested and they work absolutely fine. I made some mistakes > for sure while building the physical board (bad/expired beer?), some little > mess with the gates which I can't fully follow - unable to replicate the > initial conditions, I no longer have that bad beer which gave me headaches > during the design phase. Now I have only the good stuff. > > So I am asking for help in order to run that "*tpw" *program and follow > the registers, while graphing the physical measurements logic using two > HP1662 logic analyzers: would you please let me know where I may find it? > > This is an older version of my pertec tape drive emulator. The project > advances slowly - not too much spare time available, not even to update > with new pictures and progress. My wife, child and workplace demand 99% of > my attention. Unfortunately I have limited knowledge about working with > github, mostly because it is owned by Microsoft (and used for inspiring > their business, that's why I refused to learn about it), and also because I > am used to the old times when programs were stored & exchanged on cassettes > and floppies, and version control was manually followed with pen and paper. > At this time it is easier and faster for me this way. > > https://hackaday.com/2019/05/02/a-mainframe-tape-drive-emulator/ > > Thank you. > > > Vasile > > > > > > >> On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 8:00 PM <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Tue, 26 May 2026 12:08:09 -0400 >> From: Jacob Ritorto <[email protected]> >> Subject: [cctalk] Re: ...a .TAP by any other name... >> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" >> <[email protected]> >> Message-ID: >> < >> cahyqbfaspc+gs6mrzv5epmt__kp_xb-wvfubo9k-hicsx8i...@mail.gmail.com> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" >> >> Thank you for that ,Ken - good to have in the pocket! >> I tried Johnny's tpw under 2.11BSD and it achieved writing simh TAP to a >> real TK50. So I'm booting real hardware from that sept 1992 rsts/e image >> now! >> >> >> End of cctalk Digest, Vol 1186, Issue 1 >> *************************************** >>
