Emulating the Vista Group Point 4 IRIS Computer

Disclaimer:  I've created pages like this on Blogger.com before, and I've noticed that as long as I don't create a link to the page in a menu on the home page, Google ignores it entirely.  If you are skeptical about this, please inform me, and I will remove this, and await a better "private page" online suggestion.  

Please note that in this context, a page is a different object than a post.

Now that that is out of the way, here are the private instructions for how to install this system:

This is a complete system, with LU0, LU1, LU2 on Drive 0; LU3 and LU4 on Drive 1.

Instructions for (all) Windows operating systems only:

1) Create a dedicated folder/directory for this system on your hard drive.

2) Download this .zip file

3) Unzip the contents into the dedicated folder/directory you created in step 1.

4) Run (double-click) Nova.exe

5) At sim> type:  DO iris-d-c114.sim

    To skip this step, I've modified a shortcut that launches: 

 ...directory\nova.exe iris-d-c114.sim

    The trick is, not to have any spaces in the path, because it confuses Windows.  

    The first space indicates the passed parameter to the program.

6)  press <ENTER> at BAD BLOCK, 

7)  enter a <BACKSLASH> for the DATE

8)  press <CTRL>P (this will display a % sign). It changes parity.

9)  press <ESCAPE>

10)  type MANAGER<ENTER>  (All upper-case letters. Letters will not display on screen)

11) At # type IN

12) view all files:
# LIBR @
# LIBR 1/@
# LIBR 2/@
# LIBR 3/@
# LIBR 4/@
( the '@' symbol says include all accessible files, even if they belong to other accounts)
( append a carat symbol '^' to sort the file list)

13) Experiment!

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To run Vista Group Specific systems, do these following steps:

1) type BYE<ENTER>

2) hit <ESCAPE>

3) type VISTA<ENTER> (All upper-case letters. Letters will not display on screen)

4) type VM<ENTER>

At any time, if you get stuck, just hit <CTRL>C to get back to the # prompt.

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To properly shut the system down and save what is in the screen buffer to the log file:

1) At the # prompt type BYE<ENTER>

2) hit <ESCAPE>

3) type MANAGER<ENTER> (All upper-case letters. Letters will not display on screen)

4) type OFF<ENTER>

5) at sim> type QUIT

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Chuck Koch gives us a tour of the old system:

Fullscreen version available here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Qgef6PDG3neE5leUxBSTE2LWc/view



and download better audio for the video if you like.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Qgef6PDG3nV0sxbjZDMWxQaWM/view

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Full System Disk Dumps:

Vista Group Point 4 IRIS Los Angeles

Vista Group Point 4 IRIS Detroit

To view these files, download and install HxD, and open them in HxD.

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This system restoration and SimH emulation has been made possible by David Takle, who has generously taken his time and resources to analyze and modify our restored tape files.  Many thanks to David, for figuring this out, and sharing this with us:

This page is NOT a part of the "Understanding IRIS" collection because it contains private company data, but please visit this "Understanding IRIS" collection anyway.  Everything else related to this system that is not private is documented there.