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DUMP-itstar.md

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DUMP and itstar

A note about emulators

ITS runs on many PDP-10 emulators, and they have various names for the tape device. KLH10 calls it mta0. The SIMH based KA10 and KL10 emulators also call it mta0, but the KS10 "pdp10" emulator calls it tu0, and the KS10 "pdp10-ks" emulator calls it tua0. It's important to use the right device name. The instructions below spell out each case explicitly.

A note about file formats

PDP-10 files store 36 bits per word. Text files store five characters per word, plus one extra bit which may or may not be used. This presents a problem when storing PDP-10 files as a sequence of 8-bit bytes, and this has been solved using many different encodings. The itstar program expects files to use the "ITS evacuate" encoding, which makes text files look like normal Unix LF line ending files. If files use some other format, it's important to convert them to ITS evacuate format before use with itstar. This can be done with the cat36 program in the tools/dasm directory. For example, to convert from CR LF line endings, use cat36 -Wascii -Xits.

Saving ITS files and extracting them using itstar

  • Mount a tape image in the emulator.

    • Type Control-\.

    • For KLH10, type

       devmount mta0 files.tape create
 continue

    • For SIMH KA10 or KL10, type

       attach mta0 files.tape
 continue

    • For SIMH KS10 "pdp10", type

       attach tu0 files.tape
 continue

    • For SIMH KS10 "pdp10-ks", type

       attach tua0 files.tape
 continue

  • In ITS, type :dump. At the _ prompt, type dump. The FILE= prompt will accept directory and file names. * can be used as a wild card. Finish with an empty line. When DUMP has finished writing the files, type quit to exit.

  • Unmount the tape image.

    • Type Control-\.

    • For KLH10, type

       devunmount mta0
 continue

    • For SIMH KA10 or KL10, type

       detach mta0
 continue

    • For SIMH KS10 "pdp10", type

       detach tu0
 continue

    • For SIMH KS10 "pdp10-ks", type

       detach tua0
 continue

  • In the host, run itstar to extract the files:

     itstar -xf files.tape

Moving host files to ITS

  • Create one or more directories, and put the files in them. There can not be directories inside directories. For example, let's say you created the directories foo and bar.

  • Run itstar to make a tape image:

     itstar -cf files.tape foo bar

  • Mount the tape image in the emulator.

  • Type Control-\.

    • For KLH10, type

       devmount mta0 files.tape
 continue

    • For SIMH KA10 or KL10, type

       attach mta0 files.tape
 continue

    • For SIMH KS10 "pdp10", type

       attach tu0 files.tape
 continue

    • For SIMH KS10 "pdp10-ks", type

       attach tua0 files.tape
 continue

  • In ITS, type :dump. At the _ prompt, type load crdir. (The crdir is to create new directories when necessary and may be omitted if all files go to existing directories.) The FILE= prompt will accept file names as above. * can be used as a wild card; for example *; * * to read all files. Finish with an empty line. If you need to load more files, type rewind to make another pass over the tape. When you're finished, type quit to exit.

  • Unmount the tape image as above.