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SI3040-4043

Class: SI3040, Disk4043

SI3040 Control emulation

This is how the SI3040 looks in my emulator. THe disk drive did not have any window to see what was going on so I decided to give a sort of internal view.

The heads move in a realistic way for the 2 drives (each fixed and removable) implemented. Shown are two drives with both disks mounted.

The format mode when accessing disks is selected by right-clicking on the window. Here one can also mount and unmount disks.

The disks had a format/size very similar to the RK05 disks, the difference is a slightly bigger size. An extract from the ETOS manual shows this difference: ETOS RK05 description and ETOS SI description. The drive we have is 100 tracks/inch, the one shown for ETOS had 200 tracks/inch.
The Non-system OS/8 driver shows that we only accept 6260 octal blocks instead of the possible 6300, in order to be more or less compatible with RK05.The program used to transfer my real disks to the emulator format is DMPSI1.PAL.

The emulation is based on the characteristics of the 3040 controller and the 4043 format of the disks. These formats are detailed in 3040 Manual Chapter 1-2 and 3040 Manual Chapter 3. I have also included a 3040 Manual Chapter 3 (text) version of this chapter.
In order to be compatible with the diagnostic (see SI3040 Listing) we had to include some preambles in the format. This allows reading the track number and setting the write-lock bit. 3040 Chapter 4 Operations checkout and 3040 Chapter 5 Test Description are further chapters of this manual.

In order to test the SI3040 disk you will need two blank disk files. Create these with our Java program to make .m43 disks: ConvertDisk. This program illustrates the format and the relation to rk05 formats.(Or get them from Various.Tests)
Boot the PDP8 with the Build-11-03-07 from Disks.Working dectape volume (.pxg), then mount the first disk file on unit 0 fixed and also on unit 0 removable. Do the same with the second disk file on Unit 1.

Then start the test program (M43TST or SI3040) from the dectape. Set format enable on the disk interface (right click). Then set the following values in the switch register and press continue each time:

A good starting point for using the emulator is to mount the disk Build-11-03-07 from Disks.Working on unit 0 Fixed. The tests used are located on disk MyProgs-22-04-07 of Disks.Working in .SV format and can be mounted on unit 0 Removable. Go to Disks.Working and download to a directory of you choice. You can then always mount these disks from this location. Don't forget to write-enable this directory and all of its files!