Wang OIS Emulator
(Click to see larger image 640x480)
An image of the 5536 workstation emulation can be seen here.
Description
Now you can have your very own Wang OIS system - without the hassle of
traveling to all corners of the globe, or paying outrageous prices to resellers
hoarding Wang relics!
The OIS emulator is written in C, and the current version is known to run
on Red Hat Linux 6.1 and 7.1. If you are adventurous, it could possibly
be ported to other systems as well.
How it works
The emulator requires a current version of Linux with Gtk 1.2 and the X
Window System. It has been tested on RedHat 7.2. I recommend a 700mhz or faster
processor. You should have at least 64 Meg. of free disk space.
The emulator 'Master' process that a virtual OIS-140. You interact with
it through a graphical interface that represents the various controls available
on the OIS. Certain internal hardware functions required for the ROM diagnostics
are not present, and the disk controllers don't appear the same as the real
OIS disk controller hardware. You will have to patch your operating system
if you decide to use disk images other than the version 10.5 that is supplied
with the emulator. The Master supports up to eight attached slaves, four
are configured in the supplied disk image.
The 'Slave' process emulates a 5536 workstation with 48k of RAM. The PC
keyboard is mapped to the Wang keyboard as close as possible, there are special
key combinations for the keys that do not exist on the PC.
The master communicates with the slave processes through UNIX IPC.
Programs included with the emulator
A patched master of OS-6 for the OIS-140 series is included, as well as
some installation and control utilities. A utility for reading and writing
UNIX files from the emulator is also included. You can develop programs with
any of the free Z80 tools available, including the SDCC C Compliler.
Installation and Operation
Installation instructions are provided in the emulator distribution. Installation
requires some familiarity with the X Window System and Linux systems in
general. Feel free to ask for help with installation.
The emulator is provided in gzipped tar format. Unpack, compile if necessary,
and run the installation script. A custom X font is available for correct
representation of the Wang character set.
Download the emulator
Due to space limitations, the emulator is not hosted on this site. Also,
the source code changes almost daily. If you want to try it out, send me
an email and I'll be happy to send you the files. It is approx. 2.5 MB.
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