virtualhub.eu.org/docs/1970s/1971/os8/simh/index.md

keywords	image	description	sidebar_position	sidebar_label
OS/8 PDP-8 SIMH 1970s 1971	./OS8-SIMH-3.webp	We can run ! OS/8 on the SIMH PDP-8 emulator. First, we need to download the ! OS/8 kit. You can download the kit needed to run ! OS/8 on the SIMH PDP-8 emulator from the "SIMH Legacy" website:	1	! OS/8 Unix on SIMH

How to install ! OS/8 on SIMH?

We can run ! OS/8 on the SIMH PDP-8 emulator. First, we need to download the ! OS/8 kit.

Downloads

You can download the kit needed to run ! OS/8 on the SIMH PDP-8 emulator from the "SIMH Legacy" website:

• ! OS/8 kit

If you are on Windows, you may need to install additional software such as 7-Zip to extract the kit.

Using ! OS/8

:::tip

If you have not already installed SIMH PDP-8 emulator, see the VirtualHub Setup tutorial on how to do so on Linux and Windows.

:::

Extract the kit you downloaded. Inside you will find two folders. Open the folder named Disks. Inside, you will find two files. Create a folder somewhere to store the files for this VM, and move the file named os8_rx.dsk into it.

Now we will create a config file for our VM. Create a text file called pdp8.ini with the following content in the VM folder:

attach rx0 os8_rx.dsk
boot rx0

Now open a terminal and move to the VM folder. Run the following command to start the emulator:

pdp8

After the emulator starts, you can enter DIR to see a list of files available:

That's it! We used ! OS/8. We can create a shell script to make it easy to launch the VM.

Linux

Create a file called OS8.sh with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
pdp8

Now make the file executable:

chmod +x OS8.sh

Now you can start the VM using the shell script. For example, on KDE you can right-click the file and choose Run in Konsole or on GNOME, where you can right-click the file and choose Run as executable. The VM will start.

See the manuals section on the main ! OS/8 page to learn how to use it.

Windows

Create a file called OS8.bat with the following content:

pdp8

Now you can start the VM by double-clicking the shell script. See the manuals section on the main ! OS/8 page to learn how to use it.

Credits

• The disk image and other files used above are from a kit available on SimH "Classic" website.

Video tutorial

Do you want to follow the tutorial by watching a video? We will post a video on our YouTube channel soon.

Archives of this tutorial may be available on Wayback Machine.